pious

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The Portuguese design genius for mixing the pious with playfully overelaborated touches reaches its apotheosis at this Unesco World Heritage site—Portugal’s equivalent of France’s monumental Cathedral of Chartres.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 27, 2026

And two Americans: Kenyon, a wry, observant, skeptical humanist sculptor, perhaps a stand-in for Hawthorne himself; and Hilda, a New England Puritan painter—self-possessed, pious, unswervingly loyal, pure as a flight of doves.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 27, 2026

Erdogan, a devout Muslim and graduate of a clerical school, has previously said he aims to raise a "pious generation".

From Barron's • Feb. 25, 2026

Her Catholic parents were wealthy and pious, and demanded high standards of their children.

From BBC • Dec. 28, 2025

Astrology developed into a strange combination of observations, mathematics and careful record-keeping with fuzzy thinking and pious fraud.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan