How to Use barbarism in a Sentence

barbarism

noun
  • The barbarism of his dictatorship cannot be ignored.
  • Such barbarisms cannot be tolerated.
  • On the contrary, the music was the best critique of the barbarism that surrounded it.
    — Adam Kirsch, The New York Review of Books, 10 Feb. 2022
  • The civilized world wants to end the carnage in Venezuela, but Cuba is the author of the barbarism.
    — Mary Anastasia O’Grady, WSJ, 16 July 2017
  • For instance, the surprising details of Liat’s capture fly in the face of the tales of barbarism the subjects have been told.
    — Siddhant Adlakha, Variety, 24 Feb. 2025
  • In Lévy’s view, Vladimir Putin’s barbarism in Ukraine an attack on the entire civilized world.
    — Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Apr. 2023
  • But the hours of video Hamas has collected and shared online also have been used by Israel to expose the group’s barbarism.
    — Elizabeth Dwoskin, Washington Post, 18 Oct. 2023
  • Graham, presumably, didn’t mean to liken his bill to barbarism.
    — Sarah Jaffe, New Republic, 29 Sep. 2017
  • This idea that the world is and has always been dog-eat-dog is uninformed barbarism masked as wise cynicism.
    — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 26 July 2023
  • Micha must decide if the work of commemorating those who lost their lives to the barbarism of men like Eichmann is worth the sacrifice of the rest of his.
    — Jessica Kiang, Variety, 4 July 2022
  • Or putting a death in the context of the thousands of other people who’ve perished through similar barbarism.
    — Froma Harrop, The Denver Post, 25 May 2017
  • Across the West there is a sense that Vladimir Putin not only must be stopped from colonizing Ukraine but should be punished for his barbarism as well.
    — Tom McTague, The Atlantic, 14 Mar. 2022
  • Hamas’s pledge to record and air executions that have yet to take place is new and seems calibrated to incite fear over the barbarism to come.
    — Drew Harwell, Washington Post, 12 Oct. 2023
  • The ironies of barbarism in Dear Comrades are alarming and recognizable.
    — Armond White, National Review, 24 Feb. 2021
  • Israel will stand against the forces of barbarism until victory.
    — Anders Hagstrom, Fox News, 31 Oct. 2023
  • Germany’s plunge from the heights of civilization to the depths of barbarism is an everlasting shock.
    — Naomi Fry, The New Yorker, 23 Apr. 2018
  • That movement includes people who have consistently chipped away at the top as well as the bottom of the barbarism of their forebears.
    — Douglas Murray, National Review, 30 Oct. 2017
  • Like Carmela, museums are past masters at putting a respectable face on barbarism.
    — Rhonda Lieberman, The New Republic, 23 Sep. 2019
  • For them, the skulls—and the entire practice of human sacrifice—evinced the Mexica's barbarism and justified laying waste to the city in 1521.
    — Lizzie Wade, Science | AAAS, 21 June 2018
  • To that end the West can shelter the country’s women, children and elderly as a defining contrast to Mr. Putin’s barbarism.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 22 Mar. 2022
  • Iran continues to arm the Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups whose barbarism has been in sharp relief of late.
    — Chris Roemer, Baltimore Sun, 27 Jan. 2024
  • These are real trigger words for Russians in general who don't like to be accused of barbarism.
    — CBS News, 23 Mar. 2022
  • Ace Ventura is a ball of slapstick but also of volcanic barbarism.
    — Nicholas Quah, Vulture, 8 Oct. 2024
  • The government was trying to send a warning, but the barbarism of the public execution appalled even the most jaded tabloids.
    — CBS News, 29 June 2019
  • This is one of the themes of Zweig’s various books, and of many books — one of the themes of history: Civilization is so fragile; it can be shattered in a second, as barbarisms come to the fore.
    — Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 25 Nov. 2024
  • In fact, the worst human barbarism demands our best creative efforts, lest ugliness win out.
    — Alexander Nazaryan, Newsweek, 26 July 2017
  • Lyle, a writer and producer, read the comments, many of them skeptical that girls would descend into such barbarism.
    — New York Times, 10 Nov. 2021
  • After fleeing London for a trip to Africa—the continent is treated like a monolithic swath of land, shamanistic and full of barbarism—he was thought to be dead.
    — Yohana Desta, VanityFair.com, 9 Jan. 2017
  • The shift may have been inevitable, given the barbarism of the war, which has claimed thousands of civilian lives, and Russia’s challenge to the conventions and obligations of modern statecraft.
    — Robin Wright, The New Yorker, 1 May 2022
  • Decades of Palestinian barbarism have eroded the pity reserves of a majority of the Israeli people.
    — Uri Kurlianchik, National Review, 25 Feb. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'barbarism.' 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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