Sample sentences for SUBVERSION

(click/touch triangles for details)

Definition

undermining (gradually destroying from within) — an established order such as a government, institution, or morality

The Chinese activist was imprisoned for encouraging subversion of state power.

subversion = gradual destruction (of an established order)

The dictatorship has been charging human rights activists with subversion.

subversion = gradual destruction (of an established order)

Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas.
Kennedy, John F. -- John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address
Do seek subversion of thy harmless life?
Shakespeare, William -- King Henry VI, Part 2
People like Martin Luther King, they said, were just troublemakers and subversives.
John Howard Griffin -- Black Like Me

subversives = people who undermine (gradually destroy) the existing social order

Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas.
John F. Kennedy -- Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You

subversion = gradual destruction (of an established order)

No subversive literature was ever in her shop, nor our home, nor that hotel room; distribution was done by kids, too young to read.
Robert A. Heinlein -- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

subversive = intended to undermine a government

(editor's note: The suffix "-ive" converts a word into an adjective; though over time, what was originally an adjective often comes to be used as a noun. The adjective pattern means tending to and is seen in words like attractive, impressive, and supportive. Examples of the noun include narrative, alternative, and detective.)

"He was subversive, though," Will said.
"Why? Because he made the priest the bad guy and the ugly guy good?"
"That was part of it."
Alex Flinn -- Beastly

subversive = working to undermine existing institutions

They're worse than useless; they are, in fact, subversive.
Peter Shaffer -- Equus

subversive = working to gradually destroy an established order

A new doctrine seems at first a subversion of all our opinions, tastes, and manner of living.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo -- Essays, First Series
One example is sufficient to illustrate the power of antitrust to subvert competition.
William F. Shughart II -- Private Antitrust Enforcement: Compensation, Deterrence, or Extortion? -- http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv13n3/reg13n3-shughart.html (retrieved 06/28/06)
the big city's subversion of rural innocence
Initially, the state tried to control or outlaw them [electronic devices like VCRs and the Walkmans] because it knew how subversive they could be.
Tom Palmer -- Why Socialism Collapsed in Eastern Europe -- http://www.cato.org/special/berlinwall/palmer1990.html (retrieved 06/28/06)

Bulstrode's subversion as an instrument of good; but the threat must have been permitted, and was a chastisement of a new kind.
Eliot, George -- Middlemarch
Kat looked annoyed for the subversion of her parental authority.
Gayle Forman -- Where She Went
Well, it is certainly important to subvert the patriarchal paradigm, and I suppose this is a way.
John Green -- Looking for Alaska
"Archibald and Mordred both used it to subvert another's will," he continued, "to control.
James A. Owen -- Here, There be Dragons
None may stand before us once we set forth to cleanse Alagaesia of every miscreant, traitor, and subversive.
Christopher Paolini -- Eldest

Principles which could be subverted by feeling in one direction were liable to the same catastrophe in another.
Thomas Hardy -- Jude the Obscure
Every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive; even science must sometimes be treated as a possible enemy.
Aldous Huxley -- Brave New World

Dictionary / pronunciation — Google^®Dictionary list — Onelook.com^®

Search for other examples by interest

Interest — Source