How to Use bleary-eyed in a Sentence

bleary-eyed

adjective
  • Most of the fans were bleary-eyed, but memories had been made.
    Eduardo Tansley, New York Times, 22 May 2026
  • The director is a bit bleary-eyed and yawning, but that won’t last.
    Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter, 29 Nov. 2023
  • That means most of us spend about about a third of our lives sleep-walking like bleary-eyed zombies.
    Jennifer Jolly, USA TODAY, 1 Mar. 2023
  • But no one was thrilled with the new appointment time, least of all a bleary-eyed Williams.
    Sean Gregory, Time, 16 Apr. 2025
  • Farther down the block, a shirtless man answered the door, bleary-eyed and idly rubbing his chest.
    Rachel Monroe, The New Yorker, 4 Oct. 2024
  • Some people roll out of bed bleary-eyed and head straight into the shower to freshen up (and wake up) for the day ahead.
    Bianca London, Glamour, 3 Oct. 2023
  • Some boat owners, bleary-eyed from a sleepless night, showed up to find their dock lines had broken and their boats were damaged.
    Chris Kenning, USA TODAY, 10 Oct. 2024
  • El Guero’s menudo is a delicacy — a miracle to the bleary-eyed crowd.
    Cesar Hernandez, San Francisco Chronicle, 3 Apr. 2023
  • Expect bleary-eyed reflections on his long career and hopefully some all-star cameos.
    Madeleine Janz, PEOPLE, 30 Apr. 2026
  • The experience left both men bleary-eyed and exhausted before the end.
    Richard Selcer, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 30 Mar. 2024
  • Into this confusion steps the TV critic, bleary-eyed and surly from too many hours on the couch.
    Graham Hillard, The Washington Examiner, 27 Feb. 2026
  • Our party of three, by contrast, included two bleary-eyed parents and a starving 8-year-old.
    Jacqui Gifford, Travel + Leisure, 16 Nov. 2023
  • Lucas Sommer woke up around the time the stock market opened and, still bleary-eyed, opened his Robinhood app.
    Gunjan Banerji, WSJ, 12 Sep. 2023
  • It’s been a wonderful, bleary-eyed week full of love and kindness and extraordinary poo.
    Anna Myers, Peoplemag, 24 Nov. 2023
  • Pablo, a hefty dude in a tight white tee, bleary-eyed behind his thick shades, dumps multiple tablespoons of sugar onto his rice.
    Alphonse Pierre, Pitchfork, 21 Aug. 2023
  • The Arabic harmonies, sung pristinely, are a clever pairing for a genre already so steeped in bleary-eyed mystique.
    Kiana Mickles, Pitchfork, 19 Mar. 2026
  • When the credits rolled, David and I held onto each other, bleary-eyed, blindsided.
    Rachel Sherman, New York Times, 12 Feb. 2025
  • At the base camp where bleary-eyed firefighters recuperate, some expressed hope this weekend that more relief was on the way.
    Isabel Debre, Los Angeles Times, 2 Feb. 2026
  • As dawn broke, a posse of bleary-eyed public servants, credentials on lanyards dangling over their sweatshirts, came out to meet the people.
    Madeleine Wattenbarger, Eliana Gilet, & Axel Hernández, The Dial, 17 Dec. 2024
  • The buttons are minimal and easy to understand, which is a boon for bleary-eyed new parents (and middle-of-the-night pump sessions).
    Simone Scully, Parents, 16 Apr. 2024
  • The emergency officials boarded the plane and carried the woman down the aisle past bleary-eyed passengers.
    Mark Ellwood, Condé Nast Traveler, 23 Feb. 2024
  • Colleagues described a popular chaplain with nicknames for the tiny patients and soothing words for their bleary-eyed parents.
    Hannah Allam, ProPublica, 10 Sep. 2025
  • Colleagues described a popular chaplain with nicknames for the tiny patients and soothing words for their bleary-eyed parents.
    Hannah Allam, ProPublica, 10 Sep. 2025
  • In a clip on TikTok, a bleary-eyed Greening looked into the camera from her hospital bed.
    Thomas G. Moukawsher, Newsweek, 23 Mar. 2025
  • Rutgers had just cut the Trojans lead to eight, leaving bleary-eyed fans worried that another late collapse was incoming.
    Ryan Kartje, Los Angeles Times, 26 Oct. 2024
  • Past winners include champs of all shapes and sizes Last year, Trumpet the bleary-eyed bloodhound ran away with best in show, the first bloodhound to earn the title.
    Scottie Andrew, CNN, 8 May 2023
  • In the clip, a bleary-eyed Robertson shows her toddler sitting up in bed eating a popsicle and watching TV in the dark.
    Nina Turner, Newsweek, 31 Oct. 2024
  • On a recent morning, Alexis Mabille showed up bright and early on the Champs-Elysées looking a bit bleary-eyed.
    Tina Isaac-Goizé, Vogue, 4 Dec. 2023
  • The crypto casinos weren’t like Las Vegas, where high-stakes poker players gambled in rooms separate from the bleary-eyed slots addicts.
    Cecilia D'anastasio, Bloomberg, 27 Feb. 2026
  • Of course, as any bleary-eyed obsessive knows, the real guy is most likely dead at this point, but don’t call filmmaker Charlie Shackleton late to the game.
    Vanessa Franko, Los Angeles Times, 23 Jan. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bleary-eyed.' 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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