exploiting

verb

present participle of exploit
1
as in using
to take unfair advantage of the type of person who exploits a friend's good nature by constantly sponging off of him

Synonyms & Similar Words

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2
as in manipulating
to control or take advantage of by artful, unfair, or insidious means a politician more than willing to exploit any national tragedy for political gain

Synonyms & Similar Words
3
as in utilizing
to put into action or service it will be a shame if you don't exploit your artistic talent to the fullest

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

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 exploiting As the unit enters its second year, its priorities remain identifying victims and building cases against those exploiting them. — Stepheny Price, FOXNews.com, 8 Oct. 2026 Still, hackers can infiltrate companies by duping an employee into installing malware on their computer or exploiting unknown vulnerabilities in their software or network. — Michael Kan, PC Magazine, 6 Oct. 2026 Balochistan has endured a long-running insurgency by groups that accuse Pakistan of discriminating against the province and exploiting its natural resources. — Munir Ahmed, Arkansas Online, 2 Oct. 2026 The Trasks encounter a wide swath of citizens, haggling with sneaky cheats, exploiting innocent fools, and befriending big-hearted neighbors. — Ben Travers, IndieWire, 1 Oct. 2026 Harnesses like Claude Code and Cursor are great at exploiting large language model (LLM) capabilities for a specific task, like coding, for instance. — Dan Faulkner, Forbes.com, 1 Oct. 2026 Rather, such groups, exploiting the perception of women as less of a security threat, primarily saw women’s active role in offensive operations as that of a conveyor of bombs. — Sara Harmouch, The Conversation, 1 Oct. 2026 Hackers have been exploiting a critical vulnerability in the Zimbra Collaboration Suite in an attempt to obtain email backups and authentication credentials of vulnerable organzations, Microsoft has warned. — Dan Goodin, ArsTechnica, 30 Sep. 2026 The Yindjibarndi have accused Fortescue of exploiting their land and damaging cultural sites. — Vivienne Walt, Fortune, 23 Sep. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for exploiting
  1. using
  2. manipulating
  3. utilizing
  4. abusing
  5. applying
  6. leveraging
  7. employing
  8. harnessing
Verb
  • Their role becomes clear at 21-, 36- and 52-Across, where the clues solve to partial entries, which can be completed only by using the entry spaces of those dash clues.
    — Sam Corbin, New York Times, 13 Oct. 2026
  • In a small farm context, that will be to a grouping of farmers that form a producer unit using the same practices in the same climate.
    — SJ Studio, Footwear News, 13 Oct. 2026
Definition of using
Verb
  • Present-day police work reflects our current economic order by placing a high value on manipulating such immaterialities.
    — Sophie Landres, Artforum, 1 Oct. 2026
  • According to Treasury, Galeano had been detained in the United States in 2017 on suspicion of manipulating ATMs and was found with drugs and backpacks containing a large amount of cash.
    — Antonio Maria Delgado, Miami Herald, 30 Sep. 2026
Definition of manipulating
Verb
  • The second allows the devil to slide into his DMs, utilizing a seduce-and-destroy approach that will eventually lead to Sutskever becoming OpenAI’s resident Chicken Little and the tech industry’s conscientious objector.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 6 Oct. 2026
  • His third model, more formally speaking, released just months after the Air Penny 3 while also utilizing Foamposite technology for its upper.
    — Ian Servantes, Footwear News, 29 Sep. 2026
Definition of utilizing
Verb
  • As Rolling Stone and Sportico have reported, the Riverside plaintiffs all allege that the church should have known that Lorch was abusing children.
    — Luke Cyphers, Rolling Stone, 7 Oct. 2026
  • Damian Reynolds, 34, was sentenced to a 20-year prison sentence — the maximum allowed under the law —after he was convicted of abusing two women, according to the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office.
    — Alex Brizee, Idaho Statesman, 6 Oct. 2026
Definition of abusing
Verb
  • The team is currently applying this approach to devices installed across wall panels or doors to harvest ambient temperature differences.
    — Mrigakshi Dixit, Interesting Engineering, 8 Oct. 2026
  • British police acknowledged applying for the warrants under the wrong statutory provision, the judge said while stipulating that the misconduct investigation against the king's brother could continue.
    — Steve Hendrix, Washington Post, 8 Oct. 2026
Definition of applying
Verb
  • Ellison and Kreiz emphasized that they’re equally invested in spending on original films as in leveraging that gargantuan stable of IP.
    — Matt Donnelly, Variety, 7 Oct. 2026
  • Oura has, of course, tried to sell itself as more than a smart ring, leveraging its massive data set and AI tie-ins as part of a more sweeping narrative.
    — Allie Garfinkle, Fortune, 7 Oct. 2026
Definition of leveraging
Verb
  • About 20 years ago, Hazleton passed the controversial Illegal Immigration Relief Act, which withheld permits from businesses employing undocumented immigrants and fined landlords who rented to them.
    — Sasha Rogelberg, Fortune, 11 Oct. 2026
  • The new mountaineering movies are delirious vicarious cinema, employing technological means and a filmmaking bravado that comes with them that would have been unimaginable three or four decades ago.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 10 Oct. 2026
Definition of employing
Verb
  • The undead hero initially turns agains the X-Men and serves Apocalypse, but Gambit’s lover Rogue is able to save him by harnessing the enormous power of a Celestial and offering to sacrifice herself.
    — Jordan Moreau, Variety, 8 Oct. 2026
  • But in a press briefing, a senior FCC official said the commission wants to look at harnessing spectrum from existing bands already licensed for cellular or flexible use.
    — Michael Kan, PC Magazine, 7 Oct. 2026
Definition of harnessing

Browse Nearby Words

exploiters
exploiting
exploits
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Cite this Entry

“Exploiting.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/exploiting. Accessed 14 Oct. 2026.

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