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

But there was a danger in trying to fit this new, American elite onto the Procrustean bed of every elite that had come before it.

From The Guardian • Mar. 3, 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

It’s a modern version of the Procrustean bed, and the people no longer have a say.

From New York Times • Jun. 28, 2016

Two or three of the maturer girls, thin and pale and drawn out by the Procrustean bed of poverty, secretly wiped the last drops of tears from their suffering faces.

From Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature by Goldman, Emma