How to Use abject in a Sentence

abject

adjective
  • She thought he was an abject coward.
  • They live in abject misery.
  • He offered an abject apology.
  • All these men are white and their tenure was an abject failure.
    — Greg Moore, azcentral, 3 June 2020
  • They’re left with nothing other than abject fear about what comes next.
    — Phil Hay, New York Times, 22 May 2025
  • The scene around the airdrops can be equally abject.
    — Ghada Abdulfattah, The Atlantic, 5 Aug. 2025
  • What else is there to say when the team has been an abject disaster over the last decade?
    — Ben Volin, BostonGlobe.com, 29 Aug. 2022
  • And yet somehow, his fans don’t read these abject failures the same way the rest of us do.
    — S.e. Cupp, New York Daily News, 29 Apr. 2026
  • And nobody hires a coach they are not blown away by, even those who turn out to be abject failures.
    — Gordon Monson, The Salt Lake Tribune, 29 June 2022
  • At this point of the season, that could prove to be an abject disaster.
    — Orion Sang, Detroit Free Press, 28 Jan. 2020
  • Of course Caldwell doesn’t want to talk about such abject failure.
    — Carlos Monarrez, Detroit Free Press, 19 Dec. 2017
  • It's been a long time since a movie took me from laughing to abject horror in five minutes flat.
    — Ars Technica, 31 Oct. 2024
  • Based on lottery odds, two years of abject losing might (but only might) get you a top-three pick.
    — Ira Winderman, Sun Sentinel, 19 May 2025
  • The abject horror of staring down an empty page waiting to be filled.
    — Malina Saval, Variety, 14 Jan. 2022
  • The abject joy at blowing bubbles or shaking bodies to a catchy song.
    — Mitch Albom, Detroit Free Press, 19 Oct. 2021
  • To the virus, to our political system, to the era of abject hate.
    — Washington Post, 18 Dec. 2020
  • Both artists were preoccupied with the abject side of the human body — the body as meat.
    — Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 31 July 2019
  • Either way, the dark side wins and the weakest among us are forced to suffer and die in abject anonymity.
    — Annika Hernroth-Rothstein, National Review, 7 June 2019
  • But that deal was an abject failure, and all of Sprint's success came crashing down.
    — Clare Duffy, CNN, 3 Aug. 2020
  • So maybe his experience will be the abject lesson now.
    — Liz Hoffman, semafor.com, 28 Apr. 2026
  • The experiment to trust them with keys to the offense looks like an abject failure.
    — Richard Morin, USA TODAY, 2 Dec. 2022
  • In the face of abject loss and society-level trauma, how does work bring meaning to our lives?
    — Kathryn Hymes, Wired, 1 Nov. 2021
  • Of course, this doesn't mean that the abject misery of the people left behind can be forgotten.
    — Cathleen O'Grady, Ars Technica, 28 Apr. 2020
  • Two-thirds of the city’s population lived in abject poverty in slums built in medieval times.
    — Dan McLaughlin, National Review, 26 Dec. 2023
  • Ask the tweenagers who won’t stop saying both numbers, to the abject confusion of their parents.
    — Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 15 Oct. 2025
  • The impeachment was an outrage and a disgrace and an abject failure.
    — Conrad Black, National Review, 8 Apr. 2020
  • For Afghans, the war brought countless fresh graves and frequent doses of abject misery.
    — Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times, 30 Aug. 2021
  • Another part of it is that in the main, the leadership in all too many cases was an abject failure.
    — Washington Post, 9 Mar. 2021
  • For Reboulet, that sequence is not abject failure.
    — Nicole Sganga, CBS News, 27 Apr. 2026
  • The development has been an abject disaster, to say the least.
    — Robert Hackett, Fortune, 20 Oct. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'abject.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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