Sample Sentences for
pious
grouped by contextual meaning
(editor-reviewed)

pious as in:  a good, pious woman

Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    Benjamin Franklin's parents were pious Puritans.
    pious = highly religious or highly moral
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    Here in New England books contained only a dreary collection of sermons, or at most some pious religious poetry.  (source)
    pious = highly moral or religious
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    It is not for me to talk lightly of a learned and pious minister of the Word, like the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale.  (source)
    pious = highly religious and moral
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Show 10 more with 5 word variations
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    But it's hard to think so pious a woman be secretly a Devil's...  (source)
    pious = religious
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    ...whose piety was exceeded only by his stinginess.  (source)
    piety = highly religious and moral behavior
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    "It is better," I recited piously, "to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house with a contentious woman."  (source)
    piously = in a highly religious or moral manner
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    It is the shock good stories offer to our expectations, not some sop they offer to our pieties, that makes tales tally, and makes comtes count.†  (source)
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    And if he really rewards piousness and public prayer and all that, like Brittain seems to think, how come he lets me drive my car around without blowing out my tires, and how come he lets me kick Brittain's butt in the pool?†  (source)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.
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    Erma's death brought out Mom's pious side.  (source)
    pious = religious
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    the piety and heroism of 'The Three Musketeers'  (source)
    piety = devotion (highly moral behavior)
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    BRADY (Piously) I object to the note of levity which the counsel for the defense is introducing into these proceedings.  (source)
    Piously = in a religious manner
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    She's been killing herself, her lifeblood channeled through scriptural pieties and long-shot hopes for Cedric's future, leaving her own urges untended and volatile.  (source)
    pieties = highly religious and moral actions
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    And there, without me asking a single question, was my answer: no amount of piousness could erase the stain on the hands of a murderer.†  (source)
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pious as in:  a pious hypocrite

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He was another pious slave owner who treated his slaves mercilessly.
pious = self-righteous (acting as though one is, or believing one is highly moral when it is not true)
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    I am tired of listening to the pious words of someone who is so cruel.
    pious = self-righteous (sounding highly moral when it is not true)
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    Christy wore a pious look, as if God Himself had just come down from heaven to sit on her desk.  (source)
    pious = self-righteous or acting holier-than-thou
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    Pious people have always gotten on my nerves.  (source)
    Pious = self-righteous (acting holier-than-thou)
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Show 10 more with 4 word variations
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    By next morning Grandpa had found a way to thumb his nose at the whole Bang town, so pious and hypocritical:  (source)
    pious = self-righteous (acting as though highly moral when it is not true)
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    He didn't know anything about me or the day I was born or he'd never say such a foolish thing, sitting there so piously at his kitchen table, sounding for all the world like a Methodist preacher.  (source)
    piously = in a self-righteous or holier-than-thou manner
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    ...you're beginning to give off a little stink of piousness.  (source)
    piousness = self-righteousness or a holier-than-thou attitude
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.
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    It is said to have been drawn, several years before the present anti-slavery agitation began, by a northern Methodist preacher, who, while residing at the south, had an opportunity to see slaveholding morals, manners, and piety, with his own eyes.  (source)
    piety = self-righteous belief (believing one is highly moral when it is not true)
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    He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity.  (source)
    pious = self-righteous (acting as though highly moral when it is not true)
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    He alleged that he was a licensed pharmacist but he so mangled prescriptions that Martin burst into the store and addressed him piously.  (source)
    piously = in a self-righteous or holier-than-thou manner
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    God damn it, there isn't any prayer in any religion in the world that justifies piousness.  (source)
    piousness = self-righteousness or a holier-than-thou attitude
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    And crooked—Say, if I told the prosecuting attorney what I know about this last Street Traction option steal, both you and me would go to jail, along with some nice, clean, pious, high-up traction guns!  (source)
    pious = self-righteous (acting as though one is highly moral when it is not true)
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    He condemned magnificently and forgave piously,  (source)
    piously = in a self-righteous or holier-than-thou manner
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    It is the pious slave-breeder devoting the proceeds of every tenth slave to buy a Sunday's liberty for the rest.  (source)
    pious = self-righteous (believing oneself to be highly moral when it is not true)
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pious as in:  cling to the pious hope

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She is clinging to the pious hope that everyone will just start to get along.
pious = sincerely felt, but highly unlikely
Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    When she says, "Cheaters never prosper," she is voicing a pious hope rather than a law of nature.
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    They sat in the courtroom in heavy silence and they looked at the tall, gray figure, not with hope-they were losing the capacity to hope —but with an impassive neutrality spiked by a faint question mark; the question mark was placed over all the pious slogans they had heard for years.  (source)
    pious = desired, but unlikely to be fulfilled
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    The fact that mass slaughters hadn't been prevented in places all over the world — and weren't being prevented now — didn't argue against these attempts to preserve the memories of former massacres and the hope they represented, that someday "Never Again" might seem like more than a pious, self-enhancing platitude.  (source)
    pious = sincere, but highly unlikely
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Show 3 more with 2 word variations
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    We may all join in that pious hope, but it is doubtful whether...  (source)
    pious = sincere, but highly unlikely
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    They danced hand in hand about the living-room of the fraternity, piously assuring one another, "He'll use it—it's all right—he'll get through or get hanged!"  (source)
    piously = clinging to a sincere wish that is highly unlikely
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    Here we cannot suppress a pious wish, that all quarrels were to be decided by those weapons only with which Nature, knowing what is proper for us, hath supplied us; and that cold iron was to be used in digging no bowels but those of the earth.  (source)
    pious = sincerely felt, but impossible
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