unrepresentative

adjective

un·​rep·​re·​sen·​ta·​tive ˌən-ˌre-pri-ˈzen-tə-tiv How to pronounce unrepresentative (audio)
: not representative: such as
a
: not typical or characteristic : atypical
an unrepresentative sample
We only claim that our town is not all that unrepresentative of America in its mixture of idealism and weakness, ambitions and muddles …Judith Martin
b
: not representing an electorate
an unrepresentative judiciary
unrepresentativeness noun

Examples of unrepresentative in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Magnet schools pull a different – but also racially unrepresentative – slice of public school students. Talisa Treviño, ABC News, 17 May 2024 These titles are deeply unrepresentative of the texts that typically emerged from binders’ offices and printing chapels and that filled the stalls of booksellers and the pockets of readers. Adam Smyth, Smithsonian Magazine, 16 May 2024 But California voters are not entirely unrepresentative of the nation. George Skelton, The Mercury News, 3 Apr. 2024 The acronym was first coined in an influential 2010 paper to describe the wildly unrepresentative populations that many psychology studies have long relied on. Connie Chang, The Atlantic, 15 Feb. 2024 And in 2022, Meta, which owns Facebook, restricted a tool called CrowdTangle that journalists and researchers had used to show which posts were most popular — often with embarrassing, odd or politically skewed results — after executives said the tool was unrepresentative of normal use. Drew Harwell, Washington Post, 8 Feb. 2024 The winter weather, intimidating even for Iowa, made an already unrepresentative process even less representative. Steve Peoples, Fortune, 16 Jan. 2024 And how can an unrepresentative sample find a representative sample to poll? Ginny Hogan, The New Yorker, 4 Jan. 2024 The season’s first trophies are determined by a small, unrepresentative body of New Yorkers, some of whom are my co-workers. Vulture, 27 Oct. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'unrepresentative.' 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

1829, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of unrepresentative was in 1829

Dictionary Entries Near unrepresentative

Cite this Entry

“Unrepresentative.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unrepresentative. Accessed 31 May. 2024.

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