How to Use co-opt in a Sentence

co-opt

verb
  • Both then and now, Nashville’s Music Row tried to co-opt the folk-stomp movement to their own ends.
    — Jonathan Bernstein, Rolling Stone, 24 Mar. 2025
  • Party lines get twisted over the years, and messages and brands are co-opted by people.
    — Tommy Cummings, Dallas News, 3 Aug. 2023
  • It's been co-opted from Black culture and turned into a stand-in for various slurs.
    — Fifth & Mission Podcast, San Francisco Chronicle, 17 Mar. 2023
  • The mass media has been mostly co-opted by the ruling BJP to advance its agenda.
    — Sumit Ganguly, The Conversation, 4 June 2024
  • Those who spoke up in self-defense were either silenced or co-opted.
    — Deborah Bonello, Los Angeles Times, 14 Nov. 2023
  • At home, that means repressing minorities and co-opting the press.
    — Daniel Block, The Atlantic, 30 Nov. 2024
  • Her work was then co-opted and published as proof of pathology under the name George W. Henry.
    — Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times, 28 Sep. 2023
  • Long before Adolf Hitler co-opted the swastika as a symbol of the Nazi party in 1920, it was used around the world as an ancient emblem of good fortune.
    — Sonja Anderson, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 May 2025
  • Her campaign in 2019 was a transparent and ill-fated attempt to co-opt the Bernie Sanders wing of the party rather than offer something new.
    — Jay Cost, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 16 Aug. 2024
  • His purpose has been co-opted by other, more bloodthirsty men.
    — Proma Khosla, IndieWire, 17 Sep. 2024
  • On TikTok, Morris whipped out her guitar and flipped his woe-is-me grievances into a song Sandoval’s band wouldn’t dare try to co-opt.
    — Larisha Paul, Rolling Stone, 27 June 2023
  • These people are co-opting a movement that was created by and for fat people.
    — Stephanie Yeboah, refinery29.com, 12 July 2024
  • Within a day, the Trump campaign had moved to co-opt the term as its own – and apply it to his immigration proposals in ads and stump speeches.
    — Cnn.com Wire Service, The Mercury News, 19 May 2024
  • The same sort of efforts to co-opt far-right talking points have been happening across Europe, analysts said.
    — Loveday Morris, Washington Post, 25 Nov. 2023
  • The swastika was an important Hindu symbol before it was co-opted by the Nazis.
    — Thomas Gibbons-Neff, New York Times, 5 June 2023
  • Meanwhile, the far right in quite a few European countries has co-opted or supplanted the center right that once held sway.
    — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 21 July 2023
  • But since its inception, it has been co-opted and bastardized by those seeking to commodify it to the point that artistry is no longer the focus.
    — Spin Staff, Spin, 12 Sep. 2023
  • But modern extremists have co-opted them to invoke a new war on Muslims.
    — Ali Breland, The Atlantic, 1 May 2025
  • Saeed said the team wanted to work with the estate to honor Malcolm without appearing to crassly co-opt his image.
    — Jason Clinkscales, Sportico.com, 7 Feb. 2025
  • Today’s China seeks not to marginalize competing groups and belief systems, the way Beijing did during the Mao era, but to co-opt them.
    — Foreign Affairs, 10 June 2024
  • Once in a while, technology still feels easy and—dare I co-opt the world from Apple's marketing department?—even magical.
    — ArsTechnica, 2 Apr. 2025
  • There is also the history of Black culture and music being co-opted.
    — A.d. Carson, Scientific American, 4 Sep. 2024
  • If anyone knows how to contact Ralph Nader, please tell him Big Energy has gone too far in co-opting the language of the oppressed … or something like that.
    — Pete Cottell, WIRED, 8 Aug. 2024
  • Turner was an access point to music that had been created by Black artists and then co-opted by white artists and white businessmen.
    — Lester Fabian Brathwaite, EW.com, 25 May 2023
  • The front porch originally extended all the way across the house, but Bambi co-opted one half to get extra room for a new library inside.
    — Kelly Ryan Kegans, Country Living, 23 Aug. 2023
  • The former alleged that the latter co-opted a Rippling employee to spy on its comms channels to look out for signs of customers switching away from Deel.
    — Thomas Brewster, Forbes, 18 Mar. 2025
  • There are also some social movements that have been co-opted by allies who have steered the movement away from its original goals.
    — Preeti Vani, Fortune, 4 Apr. 2024
  • The list of pop songs and rebellious music stars that Donald Trump’s campaigns have tried to co-opt is almost comically long.
    — Penny Abeywardena, Forbes, 13 Sep. 2024
  • Chumbawamba is no stranger to politicians co-opting its music.
    — Dhruv Tikekar, CNN, 4 Apr. 2024
  • Hot springs are usually free in both spirit and actual cost (unless the spring has been co-opted by a fancy resort).
    — Joe Jackson, Outside Online, 1 June 2018

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