as in unacceptable
falling short of a standard that's just a bush-league ploy to get cast on a TV reality show

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of bush-league A lot of times, these bush-league but prolific lawbreakers basically got a warning, then another warning, then maybe a couple of months in county. Anita Chabria, Los Angeles Times, 10 Oct. 2024 A lot of times, these bush-league but prolific lawbreakers basically got a warning, then another warning, then maybe a couple of months in county. Anita Chabria, Los Angeles Times, 10 Oct. 2024 The script constitutes a string of bush-league errors we’re not supposed to care about, starting with the audience getting way, way out ahead of the characters regarding who’s hiding what. Michael Phillips, Twin Cities, 7 June 2024 What happened in the California state Assembly truly was a bush-league error. George Skelton, Los Angeles Times, 21 July 2023
Recent Examples of Synonyms for bush-league
Adjective
  • Shapiro told reporters at a news conference on April 16 that regardless of the motivation for the crime, political violence must be condemned as unacceptable in our society.
    Riley Beggin, USA Today, 18 Apr. 2025
  • Any format that builds in a conflict of interest is unacceptable.
    Robert Greene, Mercury News, 16 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • As holidays go, however, Flag Day can feel a bit lame.
    Kevin Fisher-Paulson, San Francisco Chronicle, 8 June 2021
  • My 11-year-old loved watching the pups roll balls and play a giant floor piano, but for non-dog owners (guilty as charged), parts of the series—like dressing dogs in little hats and outfits for a Parisian fashion show—feel lame.
    Tim Neville, Outside Online, 23 Nov. 2020
Adjective
  • His interrogator conceded that the police must have gotten the wrong guy and released him within weeks.
    Gisela Salim-Peyer, The Atlantic, 10 Apr. 2025
  • Five justices said the lawsuit was brought in the wrong venue.
    Devin Dwyer, ABC News, 10 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • Some parents worry that Alexa's high tolerance for rudeness instills poor behavior in their kids, according to Quartz.
    Emily Forlini, PC Magazine, 18 Apr. 2025
  • Then someone pointed a finger at a surprising culprit: the soldiers’ poor health.
    Maxim Sytch, Harvard Business Review, 18 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • That means more time for Rojas, who has shown more bad than good to begin this season.
    Matt Gelb, New York Times, 18 Apr. 2025
  • Black Mirror’s most effective episodes use their high-concept premises to explore people’s hunger for connection and validation, and how our increasingly tech-forward, capitalistic world can stretch those human impulses to the limit for better or (almost always) worse.
    Abby Monteil, Them., 17 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • Read more The pathetic, slow-motion downfall of Barack Obama Houseguests and fish begin to smell after three days, as the saying goes.
    Aris Folley, The Hill, 17 Apr. 2025
  • Writing the most unbridled, impolite, unreasonable, pathetic rant that gives voice to unseen, unheard parts of you opens a relief valve that transfers emotional pain onto the page.
    Jessica DuLong, CNN Money, 11 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • Atlanta Falcons: Shemar Stewart, DE, Texas A&M The Falcons have been deficient in pass rushers for years.
    Ben Standig, The Athletic, 24 Mar. 2025
  • In 2022 Placer County dropped its approval after an appeals court found that its environmental report was deficient in four areas, including emergency evacuation analysis.
    CalMatters, The Mercury News, 20 Mar. 2025
Adjective
  • But what could have been a disastrous situation from the jump has the looks of becoming a positive for Báez and the Tigers.
    Cody Stavenhagen, New York Times, 14 Apr. 2025
  • Apple had seemed to resolve this with its Private Cloud Compute, but then its disastrous Apple Intelligence delays made all that somewhat academic for the time being at least.
    Zak Doffman, Forbes.com, 14 Apr. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Bush-league.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/bush-league. Accessed 22 Apr. 2025.

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