How To Use Decisive In A Sentence

  • Upstairs were the bedrooms; “mother-and-father’s room” the largest; a smaller room for one or two sons, another for one or two daughters; each of these rooms containing a double bed, a “washstand, ” a “bureau, ” a wardrobe, a little table, a rocking-chair, and often a chair or two that had been slightly damaged downstairs, but not enough to justify either the expense of repair or decisive abandonment in the attic. Chapter 1
  • a long and indecisive war
  • The uproar in both cases was swift and decisive. Times, Sunday Times
  • ‘Pochles’ is used to describe a person who is physically inept and indecisive in his actions.
  • After losing this decisive battle, the general was forced to concede.
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  • In my judgment, grave though the libel is, and grave though the aggravation has been, the answer to that question is decisively no.
  • Right now: Palin a great choice, shows McCain as an insightful, decisive leader, master chessplayer, with the right stuff for America. Report: Palin's Spokesperson Didn't Know About Pregnancy Two Days Ago
  • The problems you talk of are mostly the result of indecisive handling. The Sun
  • His supporters admire his decisiveness.
  • It considers that a lasting peace will be possible only after a decisive victory over the military power of the enemy. Times, Sunday Times
  • When no decisive successes were scored in either 1779 or 1780, France seemed to be staring disaster in the face.
  • Many of the Confederates were of opinion that this decisive victory would be the end of the war, and that the North, seeing that the South was able as well as willing to defend the position it had taken up, would abandon the idea of coercing it into submission. With Lee in Virginia A Story of the American Civil War
  • Therefore control the frequency of the cutting tool turns decisive significance.
  • The economy is regarded as the decisive/key factor which will determine the outcome of the general election.
  • Rommel's army had to be worn down, and if it had been allowed to withdraw intact into the mountain fastnesses of Tunisia, securing a decisive land victory in North Africa would have been rendered immensely difficult.
  • The decisive goal arrived against the run of play.
  • You can think fast and act decisively and this is such a plus factor at home. The Sun
  • The stamina of a soldier was the decisive factor in war. Times, Sunday Times
  • It requires ground forces to be decisive to be able to destroy and defeat. Times, Sunday Times
  • His stay in Italy, where he encountered Caravaggesque naturalism and tenebrism, was decisive for his art.
  • Threats of a bomb or a threat on the life of a hostage can't be accepted, but the speed and decisiveness of the onrush might just so distract the terrorists that they are overpowered before a hostage is killed.
  • Tranmere's reply was instant and decisive, Bishop volleying the winner from a free kick.
  • The world is full of smart executives who take decisive action. Christianity Today
  • But many critics claim the policy of a strong currency has decisively contributed to sluggish growth and record unemployment in both countries.
  • She thinks decisiveness comes from having adequate information about the matters at hand.
  • It was the second successive week for both teams that last-gasp field goals had been decisive. Times, Sunday Times
  • For designers, sleek good taste became an inspiration as they decisively shifted away from the previously efflorescent period in car design, the fabulous 1950s, with its tailfins, hood ornaments, and whitewall tires. Matthew DeBord: After the Golden Age, Can Car Design Go Green?
  • He clearly and decisively came down on the side of President Rafsanjani.
  • Many have looked to the rise of modern science for the answer, particularly in its decisive break with medieval scholasticism.
  • And he regards such theories as decisive ‘disproofs’ of theism.
  • The last despairing effort had seen the Nationalists gain a decisive victory. The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution and Revenge
  • Not only did he win decisively, he also had the Independent party, the Green party, the Libertarian party and other parties to compete with. Matthew Yglesias » The Gingrich Doctrine and the 21st Century
  • The decision-making process must comply with these prerequisites to result in a decisive policy.
  • Our group largely agreed but added that the police response to our actions would play a decisive role in how far things would escalate.
  • Politics and the political parties have yet to gel in the period after a decisive general election. Times, Sunday Times
  • These results could prove decisive in establishing the criminal's identity.
  • The game with their old adversaries from Germany could prove decisive.
  • The firm and decisive action taken indicates how seriously the ECB and the club have treated the case.
  • Wall is a tremendously challenging artist, as his stuff essentially mocks both the Cartier-Bresson 'Decisive Moment' as self-glorifying bushwa, and the Modernist painters' photography-induced flight from Realism as cowardice. Kenneth Hite's Journal
  • He had one potentially decisive factor in his favour: the element of surprise.
  • The misconceived refusal to give Charlie Adam a penalty and send off Philippe Senderos on the hour, a spoilsport decision to disallow a goal for Luis Suárez midway through the second half and a red card for the young midfielder Jay Spearing a few minutes later prefaced a crescendo of Fulham attacking which ended with a dreadful Pepe Reina error and a decisive tap-in for Clint Dempsey. Andy Carroll's ineffectiveness adds to Liverpool frustration at Fulham | Richard Williams
  • Victory for the allied coalition was swift and decisive. A Rock and a Hard Place
  • Those looking for decisive action thought they had found it now. DEVASTATING EDEN: The Search for Utopia in America
  • That fanned fears that decisive action may be less likely to address the yawning budget deficit. Times, Sunday Times
  • Outstanding differences on the border dispute between the two countries failed, however, to be resolved decisively.
  • It basically makes him look like a weak, indecisive, craven leader.
  • the Fisher Act of 1918 decisively raised their status and pay
  • Who can tell what is decisive in arriving at judgements, decisions, and basic orientations?
  • Bhandarkar, _Vaishṇ. and Śaivism_, pp. 67-73.] [Footnote 653: The name Kabir seems to me decisive.] [Footnote 654: Dadu who died about 1603 is said to have been fifth in spiritual descent from Kabir.] [Footnote 655: From a hymn in which the spiritual life is represented as a ride. Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 2
  • The Women's Cooperative Guild played a decisive role in helping to secure for Labour the newly-enfranchised female vote.
  • It was hoped that the Ulysses's skill would prove decisive in the tough battleground of Beta Centauri.
  • It's the ultimate dilemma for the indecisive: two women, attractive, intelligent, devoted.
  • He looks opportunistic and indecisive. Times, Sunday Times
  • Why did he not quote the decisive passages which they contained?
  • a subtone, his brain was afire with keen activity; but unfortunately for the going forward of things, this mental state was divided into so many battalions, led by so many generals, indirectly and indecisively, nowhere. The Place of Honeymoons
  • In territorial disputes, the animal who holds the territory usually has a decisive advantage over the interloper. Times, Sunday Times
  • But ignoring it or treating it with condescendence, motivated by the achievements in Libya, would cost Obama dearly, especially if he fails to take decisive action in Syria or provides Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon -- as well as the regime in Damascus -- with a way out. Raghida Dergham: How Will Iran and Hezbollah Respond to the Syrian Regime's Predicament?
  • At every crucial phase in this nation's history from 1906 to 1950 Sri Aurobindo intervened & gave advice & direction for decisive action which if followed would have been benificial for the nation, a number of examples come to mind namely Cripps proposal, opposing the award of communal electorate at Lucknow in 1916, Cabinet Mission Plan etc. Savitri Era party is a necessity which must begin to effectively give an alternative direction
  • Most people admire decisiveness and despise vacillation.
  • He looks opportunistic and indecisive. Times, Sunday Times
  • The problem remains to determine whether other decisive astronomical factors in planet formation are functionally linked to the surface conditions needed for biochemical processes.
  • In the end the play seems less a debate about modern art than a clever theatrical con trick in which we, like Adam, emerge decisively duped.
  • In the present state of our knowledge delle Vida's argument is plausible but not decisive.
  • Yet the final act proved decisive. The Sun
  • But this is not a conventional war and improved security will not be decisive. Times, Sunday Times
  • There is a moment in every battle at which the least maneuver is decisive and gives superiority as one drop of water causes overflow. 
  • Various factors were decisive here: more food for better performance, the widespread introduction of piecework wages, and the constant expansion of the plant-internal system of surveillance and punishment.
  • Some years ago, I was in Judge Gladys Kessler's courtroom and admired the crisp decisiveness of her judicial temperament.
  • The refs have been taking a lot of heat in the past couple of weeks, and they have to be more decisive with their flag calls.
  • There is a moment in every battle at which the least maneuver is decisive and gives superiority as one drop of water causes overflow. 
  • Voters perceive him as a decisive and resolute international leader.
  • In fact, in the election Merkel suffered a decisive rejection.
  • They gained experience in massing men and equipment in decisive sectors.
  • Fortune favours the bold - not the weak and indecisive. Times, Sunday Times
  • The Penitent Wagnerite: "some safe, undecisive sic pc mush mouth ... "some safe, undecisive [sic
  • Short Turkish Swords - yataghans or curved daggers, were most frequently used for hand-to-hand combat where they usually were decisive for the result of combat, since the use of fire-arms had still been slow and unpractical.
  • The proposed bill was decisively defeated in Parliament.
  • Iam not usually an indecisive person who sees both sides of a question. Times, Sunday Times
  • At Crécy they decisively repulsed a mounted charge by French knights.
  • There is a moment in every battle at which the least maneuver is decisive and gives superiority as one drop of water causes overflow. 
  • In 1923, as he fought for ‘proletarian democracy’ against the triumvirate led by Stalin, he changed his mind again, but by then he was too involved to speak decisively.
  • He is very quick and decisive. Times, Sunday Times
  • We find a decisive statement made by the amora Rav Huna in JT Berakhot (5: 1, 8d): “Rav Huna said: One who sees a drop of blood like [the size of a] mustard seed sits and keeps [because of it] seven clean days. Female Purity (Niddah).
  • His survivors neither decisively pull together nor fall apart.
  • There is a huge gulf between disapproval and strong moral condemnation and the right to make a decisive intervention. Times, Sunday Times
  • At this moment primitive sexual gland former base excretive spermary ketone is right become divided of male reproduction organ forms a move decisive action.
  • Now here is the decisive evidence that Clint Eastwood is one of those directors who gains depth, clarity and focus as the years advance.
  • Both groups reinforced a mutual worldview that equated leadership with brilliant, tough-minded, and decisive strategic insight and decision making.
  • The sending off was undoubtedly the decisive factor. The Sun
  • They had a match point in the semi-final against the Cantrells, but Burdett served a double fault on the sudden-death second deuce in which this point is decisive under the rules of the competition designed to prevent drawn-out matches.
  • We still don't know the decisive elements that went into that change from an older style of symbolism and writing poetry to the new style — the new style being a new type of visionariness but also a certain intermingling of prosaicness or a diminished fear of the difference between prose and poetry. An Interview with Harold Bloom
  • The injury to their key player could be a decisive factor in the game.
  • Today's game will be so tight that a single mishap could prove decisive.
  • His pieces are too monotonous in rhythm and weak in melody to be really interesting, and his experiments in tonality are indecisive.
  • Voters perceive him as a decisive and resolute international leader.
  • During the first round, the top eight women's seeds all won, and only one of them was pushed to a third and decisive set.
  • So being a messy, indecisive and disorganized ditherer is healthy!
  • A new sense of temporality gave human consciousness a decisive role in the shaping of history.
  • Now, call me naive / unobservant / clueless, but I didn't realise that Qurious was designed for a slightly less heterosexual patron than I. I simply assumed the owner was rather indecisive on choice of colour scheme.
  • It said the document must to'fully and unambiguously reflect the scope of uncertainty' over who is understood to be in charge after an indecisive outcome. Times, Sunday Times
  • This was its first serious challenge and the Government proved to be decisive and resolute on an important but emotive issue. Times, Sunday Times
  • Presidents, governors, executives, mayors are looked to as strong and decisive.
  • The conventional option was the decisive and effective one in preserving the status quo and the peace. Preventing World War III - A Realistic Grand Strategy
  • She imitates his voice as a whiny, indecisive drawl.
  • Executive agriculture industrialization, establish and breeding dominant industry project is decisive link.
  • Unlike old-fashioned narrative history, art has no decisive battles, no international treaties, and no changes of government.
  • But he -- that's one point where the label indecisiveness can be stuck to him in a sense. Adlai Stevenson: His Life and Legacy
  • She has looked weak and indecisive, sinking not swimming in the deadly currents of her job. Times, Sunday Times
  • But can they be the decisive factor when comparing summer tenting in the rocks of the Rockies to the rocks of Ontario's Canadian Shield?
  • Such vain ceremony is a thin disguise of rebellion, nor are there perhaps any personal wrongs that can authorize a subject to take arms against his sovereign: but the want of preparation and success may confirm the assurance of the usurper, that this decisive step was the effect of necessity rather than of choice. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
  • The seller thus wants to make acceptance as quick, simple and decisive as possible.
  • And every time an England player misses in a decisive shoot-out at a major championship the pressure on the next set of players to step up for their country becomes even greater.
  • A gap opened up between the Allied armies as Clark moved away from the decisive point - closing the rear of the German Army.
  • An orchestra wants to be told what to do without hesitation or conference and a conductor who involves the orchestra in decision making is perceived to be weak and indecisive.
  • On his eighteenth birthday, his parents had believed it necessary to commit the act that would decisively save their only child.
  • That was certainly a decisive factor. The Sun
  • In the report compiled by the players' union, the attack coach Brian Smith is described as "indecisive, out of his depth, difficult to talk to and simply not good enough" and accused of looking to the Romania team for inspiration. Lewis Moody and England coaches heavily criticised in leaked report
  • For later Heidegger, “being” is not a brute fact or timeless dimension of human experience but something that irrupted into human consciousness with the Greeks and can undergo decisive changes such as he hoped the Nazi-Zeit would bring. Enowning
  • There must be complete, comradely, mutual confidence amongst revolutionaries, and we must stand undeviatingly together in the decisive struggle. Captain Corelli's Mandolin
  • This hung situation usually means a weak, indecisive and ineffective coalition. The Sun
  • The new FDA commissioner is demonstrating an impressive decisiveness and understanding of agency bureaucracy.
  • However, a few heretics survived - and among them Jacques Monod, who played a decisive role in my decision to return to the problem of lysogeny. André Lwoff - Nobel Lecture
  • He consulted a supervisor, who stared at me indecisively for a few minutes.
  • An indecisive vote resulted in a six-week lesson in church politics. Christianity Today
  • The mayor was criticized by radical reformers for his indecisiveness.
  • Mr. Cohen's recent jaunt to Beijing was intended to convince the Chinese government that it must decisively curtail its ties to Tehran, or face real economic costs.
  • The weather was always the decisive factor. Spitfire Women of World War II
  • If there's anything I can't stand it's an indecisive, wishy-washy customer.
  • The decisive attack took off fromthe foremost position.
  • One well-studied case decisively confutes all the conventional arguments.
  • No wonder the Third Republic was weak and indecisive. IN DEFENCE OF ARISTOCRACY
  • Perry, a successful businessman, brought a brisk and decisive managerial style to the Defense Department.
  • Formed officially in 1775, the American Field Artillery has been the kingpin in the decisiveness of every key battle in which our country has participated.
  • He ridiculed the very idea of monarchy and turned the political debate in a decisively republican direction.
  • Old-style Japanese judo is centered on traditional throws in which athletes toss their opponents over their shoulders to send them sprawling on the mat, or other clean, decisive moves called ippon. Judo power shift
  • A confidence player who can look indecisive on an off day. Times, Sunday Times
  • Women can play a decisive role in the debate over cloning.
  • But group mind seems to be a liability in the decisive moments of touchdown, where there is no room for averages.
  • The outcome of the battle was indecisive.
  • There is a complexity and depth to these pictures that make most white Australian art look indecisive, rootless or stereotyped.
  • To play well when the decisive league game is over, critics argue, is symptomatic of a personality lacking the qualities of true winner.
  • One sudden and desolating change had taken place; but a thousand little circumstances might have by degrees worked other alterations, which, although they were done more tranquilly, might not be the less decisive. Chapter 6
  • Frankly, if the present indecisiveness goes on much longer, it might well be too late to allow a rallying of the troops for the next election.
  • Celeborn is, in fact, quite decisive, whereas Galadriel is deliberative and cautious.
  • Silver moved indecisively last week as the market paused after plunging from near-record highs above $49 an ounce. Goldman View, Euro Worry Lift Precious Metals
  • Climate was a decisive factor in establishing where the tournament should be held.
  • The invasion would then be easy, but the hope of luring the enemy fleet into decisive battle would be gone.
  • Tracing back their lives, the survey found that in almost every case the decisive factor had been marriage.
  • Most voters want quick and decisive cuts. The Sun
  • Clark, the nation's third-leading scorer, had seven points in keying a decisive 12-0 run that put the Peacocks up 21-9 with 11: 07 left in the first half. USATODAY.com - Scores
  • There is a huge gulf between disapproval and strong moral condemnation and the right to make a decisive intervention. Times, Sunday Times
  • Its pronouncements would surely be the decisive moment of the conference. PHYLLOXERA: How Wine was Saved for the World
  • He did provide the decisive moment with the winning goal, but otherwise the signs were not good. Times, Sunday Times
  • Certainly, it looks indecisive on a matter that plainly requires firm but sensitive action. Times, Sunday Times
  • Local polling looks promising for Ukip, but is far from decisive. Times, Sunday Times
  • Froch daren't let this one go to points, even though resilience and conditioning are likely to play a decisive part here. Andre Ward beats Carl Froch - as it happened! | Graham Parker
  • The world is full of smart executives who take decisive action. Christianity Today
  • However what will be decisive will be the substance and reality of the language creating the offence rather than its form.
  • Man is a decisive factor in doing everything.
  • The decisive event in Elizabethan western expansion was Drake's circumnavigation voyage of 1577-1580.
  • So this was a far more decisive victory than the 1-0 scoreline suggests. The Sun
  • Businesses were slow to get involved, but when they did, they played a decisive role. Times, Sunday Times
  • Make the brewage sure, quick, decisive; there must be no mistake about it. Saronia A Romance of Ancient Ephesus
  • Six out of 10 complain the Prime Minister has a tendency to "dither" and only 26 per cent believe he has shown decisive leadership. Archive 2008-04-01
  • A hundred thousand soldiers seems to have been the maximum any Hellenistic state was able to gather together for a decisive battle.
  • Their dominance was more persuasive after the interval, a fact acknowledged by both managers afterwards, even if the evening was denied a decisive third goal for all the rat-tat of chances created. Tottenham Hotspur 1-1 Chelsea | Premier League match report
  • This resulted in a decisive vote for independence. Times, Sunday Times
  • Family bonds show strength and a money issue in the background can be dealt with decisively. The Sun
  • Here the Fréchet differential plays a decisive role.
  • Although the battle had no real winner, it was followed by a decisive push and victory within 12 months. Times, Sunday Times
  • Additionally, they treat such information as a snapshot of material to be worked on, not as decisive.
  • In fact, those insights will sometimes be decisive in the standardization of orthographies for indigenous languages, as is the case for the PROPELCA experiment in Cameroon.
  • I'll call for you at half ten," she said decisively.
  • The slightly longer answer is to be more decisive, more impetuous and, in some areas, less of a perfectionist.
  • Some of the most complex but decisive concepts in modern physics and mathematics are set out with lucidity and concise elegance. The Times Literary Supplement
  • Some supporters said they had discussed how to raise with Clinton the subject of withdrawing from the race should she fail to win decisively on March 4. Memo to Myself: Get a Grip - Swampland - TIME.com
  • They offered opposing players bribes to fix a decisive league match against Valenciennes.
  • I agree with that analysis and I regard it as decisive of the issue which is before us in this case.
  • There is a moment in every battle at which the least maneuver is decisive and gives superiority as one drop of water causes overflow. 
  • He therefore prudently forbore, that is to say, as much as he could forbear, to show any signs of his attachment to Rose, till he had full opportunity of forming a decisive judgment of her character. Tales and Novels — Volume 02
  • The plan was decisively rejected by Congress three weeks ago.
  • One thing had nevertheless become clear, namely that the parts of the brain communicating directly with the spinal cord at the upper end - the medulla oblongata, and the segment lying directly beneath the cerebrum, the so-called diencephalon - exert a decisive influence on the vegetative controlling mechanisms. Walter Hess - Nobel Lecture
  • Botero was part of a group of seven which made a decisive break shortly after the 80 km mark of the stage.
  • They want elections to be indecisive so they can make backroom deals for power. The Sun
  • In this case we have the simple result that the preferences of the median voter are decisive.
  • I work very efficiently and am decisive, and accurate in my judgement.
  • But there have also been times when they've looked alarmingly indecisive, as if the pressure is already beginning to get to them. The Sun
  • This unity enabled the Alliance to intervene into the discourse of municipal politics in a skilful and decisive manner.
  • As ultimate commander of the military, he must now move decisively and evenhandedly to disarm the antagonists.
  • With it the French were able to conquer western, southern, and central Europe, experiencing downs as well as ups but winning all the decisive battles on land.
  • In the first two games, the defensive backs seemed indecisive, perhaps the result of playing off receivers.
  • Strange to have a decisive moment midway through a decider that has not yet been decided. Times, Sunday Times
  • This election was perhaps the first one in which the electronic media played a decisive role.
  • Even more commonly the function is a discursive and indecisive meander through various fields of learning for its own sake.
  • He said his top priority is to "maintain the momentum" on the battlefield by continuing to pursue the Taliban, especially in what he called the decisive terrain of southern Afghanistan that has been the Taliban's power base. Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion
  • More radical, and more decisive, developments in translation theory took place in Europe.
  • In my completely pragmatic opinion, the ability to intercross in captivity can be informative, but is just not meaningful enough or decisive, and certainly not a feasible way to attribute species status. How many species? - The Panda's Thumb
  • That fanned fears that decisive action may be less likely to address the yawning budget deficit. Times, Sunday Times
  • It's true that model predictions of Global Warming are inexact to put it mildly, and that numerous scientists are undecisive regarding future temperature levels, but there are facts which are proven: - On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...
  • This resulted in a decisive vote for independence. Times, Sunday Times

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