How to Use collateral damage in a Sentence

collateral damage

noun
  • Fear of collateral damage is putting the idea on hold for now.
    — Ian Talley, WSJ, 25 Feb. 2022
  • All this could be fixed, but there would be some collateral damage.
    — Neil Senturia, San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 July 2019
  • By the end of most of them, blood is on the floor, and the collateral damage is steep.
    — Mark Harris Keita Morimoto, New York Times, 27 Feb. 2024
  • The men who will die from this are nothing more than collateral damage here.
    — Maggie Fremont, Vulture, 4 Mar. 2025
  • The brewers are collateral damage in a trade war that doesn’t have much to do with them.
    — Kevin D. Williamson, National Review, 1 Oct. 2020
  • Seems there is a lot of collateral damage around this kind of lifestyle.
    — Matt Thompson, Spin, 31 Aug. 2023
  • Short’s image has proven collateral damage in the long project to solve her crime.
    — Nathan Smith, Los Angeles Times, 26 Jan. 2026
  • These two people's fight had to have a lot of collateral damage.
    — Brendan Morrow, USA Today, 15 Apr. 2026
  • Zoos have often been collateral damage in war around the world.
    — Washington Post, 5 Mar. 2022
  • And the nursing home was part of the storm’s collateral damage.
    — Glenn Garvin, miamiherald, 22 Sep. 2017
  • Winning four games in four days is a big ask, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be collateral damage along the way.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 Jan. 2023
  • So have fun with all of that — just please try to minimize the collateral damage along the way.
    — Author: Wayne and Wanda, Anchorage Daily News, 27 May 2018
  • But wonders if she should now be counted on some kind of collateral damage list.
    — Rob Crilly, The Washington Examiner, 22 Apr. 2026
  • And all of us want this movie to be over—with no collateral damage, if that’s even possible.
    — Hilary Weaver, vanityfair.com, 7 Sep. 2017
  • And as in the wild, wild West, there is likely to be collateral damage.
    — Ann Killion, San Francisco Chronicle, 28 Aug. 2021
  • The collateral damage of each murder attempt is, for the most part, a body.
    — Meredith Blakestaff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 26 Aug. 2022
  • Some of them are children of the victims, ‘the collateral damage’ of the drug war.
    — Nancy Tartaglione, Deadline, 11 Dec. 2024
  • As to collateral damage, the Uvalde shooter seems to have craved more of it, not less.
    — Los Angeles Times, 27 May 2022
  • All these headwinds caused collateral damage to the wealth of this year’s listees.
    — Justin Doebele, Forbes, 12 Aug. 2022
  • And keep in mind, when the tables turn, collateral damage is inevitable.
    — Mellody Hobson and John W. Rogers Jr., WSJ, 11 Dec. 2020
  • If the missile can’t find the target, it can be assigned a crash point so as not to risk collateral damage.
    — Sébastien Roblin, Popular Mechanics, 12 May 2023
  • This has all been a huge turn-on for them, the collateral damage not even worth considering.
    — Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 24 May 2022
  • Now there is evidence that the virus causes collateral damage to the heart.
    — Julie Washington, cleveland, 3 Aug. 2020
  • Through no choice of their own, kids are too often the collateral damage when those adults become lost in ther own chaotic lives.
    — Sharon Grigsby, Dallas News, 17 Mar. 2023
  • Also, the lack of care, seeming care, for collateral damage, if things go wrong, has been a big contention for them.
    — Katie Campione, Deadline, 4 Nov. 2024
  • That would allow for less collateral damage to the body and more of a focused treatment for cancer.
    — Joshua Hawkins, BGR, 20 Nov. 2021
  • But the risks to Ukrainian culture are more than mere collateral damage.
    — New York Times, 15 July 2022
  • With a thriller’s pace, the play muses on guilt, intractable conflict and collateral damage.
    — Celia Wren, Washington Post, 8 Nov. 2023
  • Still, being able to move forward without collateral damage should be worth the effort in the end.
    — Tarot.com, Baltimore Sun, 6 May 2024
  • And with the local tech world such an easy target for snark and scorn, no wonder the lush rooftop suffers collateral damage.
    — John King, San Francisco Chronicle, 4 Sep. 2022

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