prejudiced

adjective

prej·​u·​diced ˈpre-jə-dəst How to pronounce prejudiced (audio)
: resulting from or having a prejudice or bias for or especially against

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Prejudice: For or Against?

Although prejudice, with its connotations of intolerance , implies a negative bias, the word can be used in positive constructions:

I, too, appreciate projects that treat a difficult subject with rigor, although I'll confess to harboring a bit of prejudice toward thing-biographies.
Adam Baer, Harper's, May 2011

That's true for the participial adjective prejudiced as well:

“The question itself as posed in the survey obviously is prejudiced in favor of the program,” said Tod Story, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.
Neal Morton, Las Vegas Review Journal, 2 Aug. 2016

In negative constructions, prejudice and prejudiced often precede against:

Lee County Circuit Judge Jacob Walker on Tuesday ruled that claims of juror misconduct by former House Speaker Mike Hubbard failed to show that the jury was prejudiced against Hubbard.
Mike Cason, AL.com, 19 Oct. 2016

Examples of prejudiced in a Sentence

Most Americans deny being prejudiced against people of other races. I was prejudiced against the movie because of its title.
Recent Examples on the Web Even in these spaces, Black women can still be prejudiced against, or perceived as stereotypically angry, aggressive or difficult, Dickens said. Leah Asmelash, CNN, 27 Feb. 2024 Another problem, of course, is that the data on which the models are trained—billions of words taken from digital sources—contain plenty of prejudiced and stereotyped statements about people. David Berreby, Scientific American, 20 Feb. 2024 People who didn’t know my background often shared hurtful, biased and prejudiced comments about Mexican Americans. Greg Bardsley, The Mercury News, 16 Feb. 2024 The latter position, widely condemned as prejudiced by LGBTQ advocates, helped solidify DeSantis' national profile as a Republican warrior but sparked a lengthy feud with The Walt Disney Company, ABC News' parent company and one of the largest private employers in Florida. Will McDuffie, ABC News, 21 Jan. 2024 Critics might argue that our conclusions are prejudiced because of the team’s political positions. Aleksei Miniailo, Foreign Affairs, 28 Dec. 2023 Yet despite these developments, the movement remains alive and well thanks in part to the implicit-association test: a popular tool that has been used to claim that most of the U.S. is racially prejudiced. Hal R. Arkes, WSJ, 10 Jan. 2024 Local people of all political inclinations – even those who may hold prejudiced or negative views of migrants – leaped to action when confronted with the immediate need. Alessandro Clemente, The Christian Science Monitor, 21 Dec. 2023 This prejudiced approach – further soured by industry rules prohibiting on-screen kissing between Chinese and white actors – dogged the actor throughout her career. Erin Douglass, The Christian Science Monitor, 12 Oct. 2023

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

Word History

First Known Use

1579, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of prejudiced was in 1579

Dictionary Entries Near prejudiced

Cite this Entry

“Prejudiced.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prejudiced. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

Legal Definition

prejudiced

adjective
prej·​u·​diced
ˈpre-jə-dəst
: resulting from or having a prejudice or bias for or especially against
alleged that the trial judge was prejudiced

More from Merriam-Webster on prejudiced

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