How to Use pious in a Sentence

pious

adjective
Definition of piousnext
Synonyms for piousnext
  • They lived a quiet, pious life.
  • I'm tired of hearing politicians making pious pronouncements about their devotion to the people.
  • The window is narrowing and the time for pious concern is over.
    — CNN, 23 Jan. 2020
  • There is an old joke about a pious man stranded on a desert island.
    — Jessica Kiang, Variety, 8 July 2023
  • Some have pointed out that sumo has not always been so pious.
    — The Economist, 14 Apr. 2018
  • The Sabbath, as the more pious call it, is intended to be a day of rest.
    — Rachel Levin, SFChronicle.com, 11 June 2020
  • But in the years since, China has slowly relaxed its ban on the pious.
    — James Chau, Newsweek, 2 May 2017
  • The monks also worry that touts and mass tourism will turn their biggest, most pious donors away.
    — The Economist, 26 Apr. 2018
  • All women in Gilead are required to be pious and subservient to men.
    — Los Angeles Times, 29 June 2022
  • Other businesses that would have made the pious padres roll in their graves soon followed.
    — Gary Kamiya, SFChronicle.com, 27 Nov. 2020
  • The funniest thing about the Mets is the players’ pious self-image.
    — New York Times, 30 Aug. 2021
  • Staples sings from her depths, with low moans and ragged, seductive growls that cut through even the most pious lyric.
    — David Remnick, The New Yorker, 27 June 2022
  • Dovid feels the same pressure to be devout, to serve as a pious example to the community.
    — Gary Thompson, Philly.com, 10 May 2018
  • It is haunted by ghosts, even if its more pious residents wouldn’t put it that way.
    — Alissa Wilkinson, Vox, 12 July 2018
  • Like pious Carmela in her haute bourgeois drag, art museums are married to the mob.
    — Rhonda Lieberman, The New Republic, 23 Sep. 2019
  • Both are the object of pious, if not exactly lustful, love.
    — Eliana Dockterman, Time, 15 Sep. 2017
  • Never mind that the pious hosts were to toast a rough-and-tumble team known for its dirty tricks and abrasive behavior.
    — Mike Klingaman, baltimoresun.com, 30 June 2021
  • Who can turn pious and complain about being talked or written about when their day job is to talk and write about everybody else?
    — Catherine Ostler, Vogue, 19 Nov. 2021
  • This was intensely painful for Faigy, who was deeply pious.
    — Larissa MacFarquhar, The New Yorker, 30 Nov. 2020
  • This was not regarded as a failure by the yeshivas: from their point of view, no more was necessary to live a pious life.
    — Larissa MacFarquhar, The New Yorker, 30 Nov. 2020
  • Only when the tiny figure of the Catholic schoolgirl passes out of frame does the camera pan up and show us a pious stone face, hands clasped in prayer.
    — Annie Sisk, baltimoresun.com, 22 May 2017
  • Meanwhile, Johns was almost embalmed in pious writing that could find no wrong in him.
    — Jerry Saltz, Vulture, 22 Sep. 2021
  • Perhaps the most galling part of Barr’s speech, under current circumstances, is its hymn to the pious life.
    — Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker, 18 Oct. 2019
  • He's not meant to be just a conventionally pious figure.
    — Michael Lenehan, Chicago Reader, 6 Sep. 2017
  • Nice guys, or, anyway, pious guys, finish last and should be proud of their position.
    — Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 21 Aug. 2023
  • These days, this pious sense of optimism might be overshadowed by a more popular use.
    — New York Times, 25 Jan. 2022
  • Mixed and even negative opinions can serve as control rods for the fission of overly pious engrossment.
    — Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker, 8 Feb. 2021
  • The other side of the masonry block was covered with a web of ancient graffiti, she said, left by pious visitors to the tomb.
    — Tom Mueller, Atlantic, October 2003
  • But on the heels of his pious disgust would come his essential Tom O’Brien-ness.
    — Maryoconn, Longreads, 18 Sep. 2017
  • But there was really nothing for them, besides the usual pious statements.
    — Jayati Ghosh, Quartz India, 8 July 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'pious.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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