How to Use pacifist in a Sentence

pacifist

1 of 2 noun
  • Every version of me is a pacifist.
    — Zadie Smith, New Yorker, 22 Sep. 2025
  • This included being a pacifist to avoid taking the lives of others.
    — Lallia Allali, San Diego Union-Tribune, 2 Mar. 2022
  • Guimard was a pacifist and a passionate champion of the worker.
    — Susannah Gardiner, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 Dec. 2022
  • Marziani, a pacifist at heart, used a couple of violent metaphors to explain the difference then and now.
    — Elaine Ayala, San Antonio Express-News, 28 Jan. 2022
  • This is punishment as entertainment, a short and sour saga of a pacifist turned vengeful brute in order to win back his self-respect.
    — Joe Morgenstern, WSJ, 25 Mar. 2021
  • Mayer, raised Jewish and turned Quaker, would deny being a pacifist.
    — Chris Vognar, Los Angeles Times, 8 Dec. 2022
  • Such a move remains in the future, but Beijing would prefer that Japan remain a staunch pacifist forever.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 3 Mar. 2022
  • Shopping for children’s gifts with Stephen Spender, a pacifist, Rorem was surprised that Spender bought toy pistols.
    — Christopher Benfey, The New York Review of Books, 25 Dec. 2022
  • Though a pacifist, Du Bois used his considerable influence to urge readers to support the war effort.
    — Barbara Spindel, The Christian Science Monitor, 22 June 2023
  • The Trigun saga follows the story of Vash the Stampede, a legendary gunman and a pacifist with a bounty on his head.
    — Patrick Brzeski, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 June 2022
  • The art critic, pacifist and brother-in-law of Virginia Woolf has been neglected in favor of his contemporaries.
    — Wsj Books Staff, WSJ, 28 Jan. 2022
  • As a result, Germany is often described in security and foreign policy circles as pacifist.
    — Claire Parker, Washington Post, 19 Jan. 2023
  • All voiceover in the film is detached from the images, from a mixture of unidentified community folk who are content to speak anonymously, and neighboring outsiders perplexed by these out-of-time pacifists.
    — Guy Lodge, Variety, 21 Nov. 2025
  • To argue the contrary position was to be derided as an isolationist, an appeaser, or a pacifist—and to be rendered ineligible for election to high office.
    — Andrew J. Bacevich, The New Republic, 9 June 2020
  • Rachel Holmes’ superb biography of the radical activist presents her in full, as an artist, writer, pacifist, anti-fascist, and lifelong proponent of human rights.
    — Monitor Reviewers, The Christian Science Monitor, 17 Dec. 2020
  • The artist, who called herself a pacifist, was known for her involvement in various organizations including ones dedicated to landmine removal.
    — Jolie Lash, EW.com, 13 Aug. 2021
  • Marchand has crossed lines by licking players, or repeatedly punching a hockey pacifist like Vancouver’s Daniel Sedin in a final series.
    — Dave Hyde, Sun Sentinel, 29 Mar. 2025
  • However, it was criticized by pacifists at home and China for deviating from Japan’s postwar self-defense only principle.
    — ABC News, 27 Apr. 2026
  • The Kremlin, which is quick to crush dissent from pacifists and antiwar activists, has tolerated criticism of the military operation from pro-war bloggers.
    — Robyn Dixon, Washington Post, 3 Apr. 2023
  • Bloomsbury included pacifists, conscientious objectors, soldiers, and agents of empire.
    — Jenny Noyce, JSTOR Daily, 14 May 2025
  • The pacifist is a term given to those individuals who fall into the people-pleasing category and will often fail to respond truthfully regarding expectations from just about anyone.
    — Thomas Aronica, Forbes, 29 June 2022
  • Alexei, a 30-something pacifist, lives with his cat and, until Russia’s he was hauled off, enjoyed hanging out with friends in bars, cafes and parks, going to concerts and planning his next holiday in Europe.
    — Natalia Abbakumova, Washington Post, 16 Oct. 2022
  • Depp’s lawyers during closing remarks, keeping in line with their trial strategy, portrayed Heard as the abuser in the former couple’s relationship and Depp as a pacifist who tried to hide at the sign of an argument.
    — Winston Cho, The Hollywood Reporter, 27 May 2022
  • His father, Kenneth, was a pacifist and a conscientious objector in World War II, which made the family somewhat outcast in its small hometown.
    — Barbara Isenberg, Los Angeles Times, 12 June 2026
  • German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky won in 1935, infuriating Adolf Hitler.
    — Arkansas Online, 8 Oct. 2022
  • That undoubtedly suits our own cultural moment, as Americans of all stripes pursue their goals outside the channel of traditional politics—and sometimes in ways that would make Child, a lifelong pacifist, turn over in her grave.
    — James Marcus, WSJ, 4 Nov. 2022
  • The anti-expansionist response united pacifists, abolitionists and a variety of religious and literary figures, helping deepen the divides that would lead to the Civil War.
    — G. Patrick O'Brien, The Conversation, 3 Mar. 2025
  • The Brotherhood bears some resemblance to the Bruderhof, a tiny Christian pacifist sect founded in Germany in the nineteen-twenties that left its country of origin and spread around the globe in response to Nazi Fascism.
    — Hannah Gold, New Yorker, 29 Aug. 2025
  • Still, Bale has a couple of nice moments as Mandras, a Greek fisherman who loses his fiancée (Penelope Cruz) to a mandolin-playing pacifist (Cage, of course) but, all told, is pretty reasonable about it.
    — Tim Grierson, Vulture, 7 Mar. 2026
  • To some that combination is an inherent contradiction, like being a meat-eating vegetarian, a violent pacifist or a Dodger-loving San Francisco Giants fan.
    — Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times, 13 June 2023

pacifist

2 of 2 adjective
  • At the time, a pacifist movement was emerging around the world.
    — John Charles Wooding, The Conversation, 2 Oct. 2019
  • Critics say that such a change would strike at the heart of the pacifist document.
    — Michael Holtz, The Christian Science Monitor, 24 Oct. 2017
  • The robber, of course, is Davis, who is something of a pacifist prince of thieves.
    — Justin Chang, New Yorker, 13 Feb. 2026
  • Pumphrey's circumstances may have led him away from his pacifist roots, White says.
    — Scott Neuman, NPR, 23 June 2026
  • The public is wary of his plan to rush through a revision to the pacifist constitution.
    — Isabel Reynolds, Bloomberg.com, 11 July 2017
  • All conflict is gone; the hive mind is united in a collective purpose of pacifist overlords.
    — Kathryn Vanarendonk, Vulture, 14 Nov. 2025
  • Understandably, Germany emerged from that war with a pacifist bent.
    — Frida Ghitis, CNN, 22 Jan. 2023
  • Even in pacifist Japan, nearly a third of people would favor a preemptive move.
    — The Christian Science Monitor, 30 Aug. 2017
  • There was a pacifist minority, but most of us stayed at home when ETA was killing.
    — Washington Post, 5 May 2018
  • Rustin served as the treasurer of the and co-secretary of race relations for the , a pacifist human rights group.
    — Brigit Katz, Smithsonian Magazine, 7 Feb. 2020
  • Japan deployed its first long-range cruise missiles at a military camp, pushing the limits of the country’s pacifist stance.
    — J.d. Capelouto, semafor.com, 31 Mar. 2026
  • The great danger was, and remains, that the pacifist wings of all three parties in the coalition government—Mr.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 8 May 2022
  • An avowedly pacifist country, Japan has for years avoided offensive weapons such as cruise missiles.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 2 Jan. 2018
  • Abe hopes to adopt a tougher military stance against Pyongyang, altering a decades-long pacifist approach.
    — Kevin Liptak, CNN, 4 Nov. 2017
  • But the simple, pacifist story about a bull who would rather smell flowers than fight has resonated across generations.
    — Katie Walsh, idahostatesman, 14 Dec. 2017
  • However, there’s resistance within the country to any move away from Japan’s pacifist stance.
    — Emiko Jozuka, CNN, 21 May 2022
  • At the same time, a strong pacifist strain influenced West German politics.
    — New York Times, 5 May 2022
  • Japan’s pacifist postwar constitution imposes strict limits on the use of force.
    — Hanako Montgomery, CNN Money, 19 Mar. 2026
  • Even the Vietnam war was good for pacifist Japan, generating demand.
    — The Economist, 21 Nov. 2019
  • News website SakhaDay said the women chanted pacifist slogans and songs.
    — Jon Gambrell, BostonGlobe.com, 25 Sep. 2022
  • And even pacifist types like Henry David Thoreau supported him.
    — John H. Richardson, Esquire, 16 June 2009
  • Yet this would be a violation of the Mennonites’ pacifist beliefs.
    — Jennifer Wilson, The New Republic, 19 Dec. 2022
  • The next morning, the Hound returns from chopping wood to find the whole tribe slaughtered, including their pacifist leader.
    — Erica Gonzales, Harper's BAZAAR, 6 June 2016
  • Their pacifist convictions are tough to square with the conclusions in the prosecutor’s report.
    — Hilary Beaumont, Rolling Stone, 16 Oct. 2023
  • The series stars Nakadai as a pacifist soldier in World War II-era Japan.
    — NPR, 12 Nov. 2025
  • In the aftermath of the war Japan became a pacifist country, swearing off war as a tool of national policy.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 29 May 2018
  • Mr Abe has taken his win as a mandate to press ahead with his long-standing plan to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution.
    — The Economist, 28 Oct. 2017
  • The coup against the state could be read as an anticolonial revolution, but the alt-right interprets it as a nationalist putsch against a pacifist state.
    — Shaan Amin, The New Republic, 16 Nov. 2020
  • Rustin traveled to India in 1948 to learn more about pacifist ideas and helped introduce those teachings to King.
    — Harmeet Kaur, CNN, 5 Feb. 2020
  • The Japanese public is divided on the issue – the island has been a pacifist nation since the end of their empire, and some prefer to keep it that way.
    — Fox News, 25 Feb. 2022

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