How to Use ayatollah in a Sentence

ayatollah

noun
  • And under the deal, the ayatollahs have no viable path to a bomb for well over a decade.
    — Trudy Rubin, Philly.com, 13 Oct. 2017
  • Inside, and some steps to the right, the pontiff will come face to face with the ayatollah.
    — Star Tribune, 3 Mar. 2021
  • The pope walked down an alley barely wide enough for his entourage near the ayatollah’s home.
    — New York Times, 6 Mar. 2021
  • The regime could look for a real ayatollah to succeed Khamenei.
    — Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, 5 Mar. 2026
  • The Shias don’t follow dead ayatollahs, [so] that fatwa is no longer valid.
    — Mishal Husain, Bloomberg, 13 Mar. 2026
  • What followed was not a town hall meeting and a crash course in civics, but another ayatollah.
    — Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 4 Mar. 2026
  • That, in fact, is precisely what the ayatollahs are counting on.
    — Ilan Berman, Forbes.com, 26 Jan. 2026
  • The aging ayatollah, who underwent surgery for a fractured thigh bone last year, looked tired.
    — Time, 6 Mar. 2021
  • The aging ayatollah, who underwent surgery for a fractured thigh last year, looked tired.
    — Nicole Winfield and Qassim Abdul-Zahra, chicagotribune.com, 6 Mar. 2021
  • The theocracy of the ayatollahs has been exposed in all its fragility.
    — David Remnick, New Yorker, 11 Jan. 2026
  • And the ayatollah is already all-in with Russia and China in this fight.
    — ABC News, 27 Nov. 2022
  • The Iran war bombing pause isn’t enough to bring the ayatollahs to the bargaining table.
    — Rob Crilly, The Washington Examiner, 24 Apr. 2026
  • Video posted online showed the ayatollah seated alone on a platform as the crowd silently listened to his speech.
    — Gordon G. Chang, Newsweek, 11 Dec. 2024
  • Hundreds marched through the streets of downtown Tehran to protest the paper’s challenge to the ayatollah.
    — April White, JSTOR Daily, 20 May 2026
  • There are several dozen grand ayatollahs and sources of emulation in the world.
    — Eric Lob, The Conversation, 5 Mar. 2026
  • This was much like the fatwa issued by Iran’s ayatollah on Salman Rushdie.
    — Jordan Castro, Harper's Magazine, 9 Jan. 2024
  • This is video overnight after the announcement of the death of the ayatollah in the city of Isfahan.
    — Scott Pelley, CBS News, 2 Mar. 2026
  • Trump made the ayatollahs sound risibly inept and hopelessly out of touch.
    — Fintan O’Toole, The New York Review of Books, 9 Apr. 2026
  • An authorization wouldn’t force his hand but would certainly give the ayatollahs something else to think about.
    — The Editors, National Review, 18 June 2025
  • The ayatollahs will not go quietly.
    — Behnam Ben Taleblu, The Atlantic, 9 Jan. 2026
  • The ayatollahs won’t make any deal that surrenders their nuclear program.
    — Rob Crilly, The Washington Examiner, 22 May 2026
  • Those same ayatollahs see the United States as the 'Big Satan.
    — Matt Robison, Newsweek, 21 Nov. 2024
  • The ayatollah threatened and killed his citizens.
    — Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 5 Mar. 2026
  • Indeed, the ayatollahs have maimed and killed thousands of Americans.
    — Beatrice Peterson, ABC News, 17 Mar. 2026
  • In short, the ayatollahs don’t have to be crazy, homicidal fanatics in order to desire a nuclear weapon.
    — John M. Crisp, Mercury News, 25 June 2026
  • Yet what concerned the ayatollah–understandably enough–was the stability of his own regime.
    — Kay Armin Serjoie, TIME, 16 Dec. 2024
  • In such a scenario, the regime’s defining structure—clerical rule shepherded by a grand ayatollah—would have to be abandoned.
    — Arash Azizi, The Atlantic, 13 Jan. 2026
  • If Generalísimo Franco had been an ayatollah, there would have been a fatwa.
    — John McPhee, The New Yorker, 12 Apr. 2021
  • Nasser Makarem Shirazi, a grand ayatollah, is also worth many millions of dollars.
    — Michael R. Pompeo, Foreign Affairs, 15 Oct. 2018
  • The ayatollahs have neither the desire nor the incentive to renegotiate even a comma of the agreement.
    — John Bolton, WSJ, 28 Sep. 2017

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

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