How to Use chortle in a Sentence

chortle

verb
  • My year-old daughter is chortling, making silly faces with my mom.
    — Bridget Shirvell, New York Times, 17 Apr. 2020
  • The nightingale flew around the fox’s head, the two of them chortling in their own indiscernible ways.
    — Hazlitt, 19 Nov. 2025
  • For her part, Clinton sat there and chortled, righteous and aglow.
    — Heather Wilhelm, National Review, 6 Oct. 2017
  • Some people were chortling over something a Fox reporter did the other day.
    — Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 8 Dec. 2023
  • Some will laugh at the suggestion and scroll through their social media apps to find a clip to point at and chortle.
    — Jon Krawczynski, New York Times, 7 Jan. 2026
  • Her friends were offended, but Hader chortled through the bit.
    — Hal Boedeker, OrlandoSentinel.com, 18 Mar. 2018
  • Washington, who was dressed in a gray suit and had been looking on intently, chortled.
    — Kory Grow, Rolling Stone, 21 Feb. 2024
  • Bill Weld will chortle and pound the table and demand another round!
    — Howie Carr, Boston Herald, 10 Apr. 2024
  • There have been some assorted chuckles, chortles, and guffaws about the theme of this season.
    — Dalton Ross, PEOPLE.com, 28 Sep. 2017
  • Casey, a veteran pol, chortled and rubbed his hands together in glee upon hearing this.
    — Bill Torpy, ajc, 4 June 2018
  • That’s what the running game has brought to the offense, which had started to chortle and choke through various stretches of the season.
    — Bob McManaman, azcentral, 24 Dec. 2019
  • The blackbird really chortles away.
    — Literary Hub, 23 Apr. 2026
  • His supporters could be heard chortling in the back row during testimony from one Liberian war victim.
    — Jeremy Roebuck, Philly.com, 12 June 2018
  • Montgomery chortled when presented such a proposition in the postgame news conference.
    — Kevin Paul Dupont, BostonGlobe.com, 4 Mar. 2023
  • Children ride their bikes to community pools and grow up listening to alligators chortle at night.
    — Jack Healy, New York Times, 25 Feb. 2018
  • Patriots fans will once again sit on their couches and chortle at the abject stupidity of every coach who goes up against Belichick.
    — Dan Shaughnessy, BostonGlobe.com, 7 Sep. 2019
  • From Kansas City came some chortling about the unexpected result of Thursday night’s football game.
    — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 8 Sep. 2017
  • In one careful hour that guy pulled the rug out from everything the Eve hypothesis people ever said, chortles Wolpoff.
    — Joann C Gutin, Discover Magazine, 11 Nov. 2019
  • Ed's nasty chortles project everything from abject fear to hunger, dramatic interest, wanderlust and just plain evil laughter.
    — Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY, 23 Nov. 2018
  • Letting the chauvinists chortle over Riggs’s victories would not help in the battle for public opinion.
    — Lorne Manly, New York Times, 8 Sep. 2017
  • The main entertainment was Jimmy Buffett, bluff and chortling, on hand to promote his feel-good jukebox musical.
    — Matthew Schneier, New York Times, 10 May 2018
  • The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah has been booked to tell the jokes that everyone will chortle over at first, then complain about later.
    — Jason Linkins, The New Republic, 29 Apr. 2022
  • Sheila was his beautiful blond wife, holding their chortling infant in a campaign commercial for his first run as the Republican candidate for mayor.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 20 Oct. 2019
  • Klobuchar contrasted her big picture talk with stories of her family’s humble roots — her grandfather was a miner, who used a coffee can to save for her father’s future — and kept the crowd chortling with jokes.
    — NBC News, 3 Feb. 2020
  • By all means, chortle at the thought of executives racking their brains until the wee hours in search of something more clever, before desperately concluding that the placeholder was good enough.
    — A.a. Dowd, Chron, 11 Jan. 2023
  • Then the president can chortle if immigrants who are here illegally duck away from participating in the population count.
    — George Skelton, latimes.com, 25 Jan. 2018
  • There are a host of other chortling jack-o-lanterns as well, usually including an enormous one shooting flames from the top of its roasting head, an effect created by soaking toilet paper rolls in kerosene.
    — M. Carrie Allan, The Denver Post, 23 Oct. 2019
  • Regime leaders must be chortling over their surprising and unearned new international legitimacy.
    — Daniel B. Shapiro, The Atlantic, 17 June 2026
  • While much attention is paid to audience chortles, the laughter of the stand-up comic remains underexamined, despite being a critical part of the performer’s tool set.
    — Jason Zinoman, New York Times, 3 Mar. 2017
  • Critics understandably chortle but the paper perhaps is resurrecting itself for a serious moment.
    — Holman W. Jenkins, WSJ, 22 Mar. 2022

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