procrustean

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.

The wild variety of American life can never be clamped down on the Procrustean bed of a single form of schooling.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 9, 2026

To be sure, one lesson of European history is that it’s never a good idea to try to force Europe’s diverse peoples into a one-size-fits-all Procrustean bed.

From The Guardian • Jan. 31, 2020

There is grandeur in this new view of life, so why force it into the Procrustean bed of nineteenth-century theorizing?

From Scientific American • Jun. 15, 2019

Cooper presses Lady Gaga into the Procrustean frame of his own artistic concerns and, in the process, leaves out what makes her such a noteworthy and original artist.

From The New Yorker • Oct. 12, 2018

That does not please the doctrinaires, who insist on setting up Procrustean beds of theory on which realities should be racked or crammed.

From The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy by Stoddard, Lothrop