How to Use tentative in a Sentence

tentative

adjective
Definition of tentativenext
Synonyms for tentativenext
  • We have tentative plans for the weekend.
  • The tentative pact is to go before the school board on Feb. 16.
    — Chronicle Staff, San Francisco Chronicle, 18 Feb. 2021
  • And the road to even a tentative agreement has been a rocky one.
    — NBC News, 12 Feb. 2020
  • The tentative plan is for the House to try to vote on a stop gap budget on Thursday.
    — Jamie Dupree, AJC.com, 16 Jan. 2018
  • The same is true of Jae Crowder, who has been very tentative.
    — Terry Pluto, cleveland.com, 3 Nov. 2017
  • The original board even depicts the tentative steps of a boy in a leg brace.
    — Alexander B. Joy, The Atlantic, 28 July 2019
  • The memo to Local 600 members was brief, and didn’t include the terms of the tentative agreement.
    — Carolyn Giardina, Variety, 21 Mar. 2024
  • The date goes smoothly enough: a moonlit chat on a dark rooftop gives way to a tentative kiss.
    — Anne Cohen, refinery29.com, 24 Oct. 2022
  • Biden’s query to Deng back then probed the boundaries of the tentative partnership.
    — Michael Schuman, The Atlantic, 11 Aug. 2022
  • But even our laughter is tentative these days, and the jokes just remind us of the chaos that seems to beset the country.
    — David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle, 19 Dec. 2017
  • At first, his movement is a little tentative, full of stops and starts.
    — New York Times, 12 Jan. 2021
  • The tribe plans to finance the project itself, with tentative plans to gain city approval and break ground in early 2025.
    — Journal Sentinel, 29 Feb. 2024
  • The aides stressed that all plans were still tentative and that the initial events would likely not be rallies.
    — Eliza Collins and Michael C. Bender, WSJ, 8 Oct. 2020
  • These exchanges at the end of the day are initiated with half nods and tentative smiles.
    — James Lynch, Popular Mechanics, 9 Feb. 2018
  • Some writers might be tentative about the limelight, but not him.
    — E. Alex Jung, Vulture, 2 Aug. 2021
  • But two rules that won tentative approval in March failed to pass muster on Wednesday.
    — Susannah Bryan, sun-sentinel.com, 6 Apr. 2022
  • The tentative agreements deliver on all of these — and more.
    — Allie Morris, Dallas News, 31 Jan. 2020
  • There have been a few tentative discoveries in the mass gap so far.
    — quantamagazine.org, 27 Jan. 2021
  • That could put him on track for a tentative return within about two weeks.
    — Nick Piecoro, The Arizona Republic, 10 May 2021
  • The two announced a tentative deal for Alaska to acquire Hawaiian for $18 a share on Dec. 3.
    — Jeremy Lott, Washington Examiner, 4 Jan. 2024
  • Hayes, more than anything, looks wide-eyed and tentative.
    — Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press, 10 Jan. 2021
  • Click here for a tentative beer list, and here for subject-to-change summer cocktails.
    — Benjy Egel, sacbee, 2 July 2018
  • My tentative plans are to gerrymander all of those crazy libs rights out of the section.
    — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 13 Sep. 2017
  • Members will vote on the tentative agreement next month.
    — Katie Johnston, BostonGlobe.com, 27 July 2023
  • Talks of Uranus and Neptune missions are tentative at best.
    — John Wenz, Popular Mechanics, 15 Sep. 2017
  • The initial tentative agreement on a set of terms was reached over Labor Day weekend of this year, the filing added.
    — Max Zahn, ABC News, 19 Dec. 2023
  • That first tentative step a child takes eventually gives way to a run.
    — oregonlive, 8 June 2020
  • The tentative agreement that will probably end the actors’ strike has a lot to say about AI—one of the actors’ key concerns.
    — David Meyer, Fortune, 21 Nov. 2023
  • Drescher herself has fired back at critics of the tentative deal.
    — Chloe Melas, NBC News, 3 Dec. 2023
  • His movements were a little tentative, his shots didn't look quite right.
    — David Brandt, Star Tribune, 8 June 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'tentative.' 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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