Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

This may be done from the best of motives, but it is shortsighted in the extreme — you might even say presentist.

From Washington Post • Aug. 29, 2022

We may distinguish, broadly, between three main approaches to the history of philosophy—the presentist approach, the contextualist approach, and the hermeneutic approach.

From Textbooks • Jun. 15, 2022

“We can’t be presentist about this particular crime. That twinned marginalization is important to understand.”

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 19, 2021

To a great extent, Bannon’s framing is a presentist error, an overlay of modern notions of citizenship and national boundaries over a time when those very things were still fluid and contested.

From Slate • Sep. 12, 2017

Another group argues that all historical films are presentist — they use the past to illuminate modern conundrums.

From Washington Post • Apr. 20, 2017