How to Use contrail in a Sentence

contrail

noun
  • The white streak in the sky shown in the video is an airplane contrail.
    — Eleanor McCrary, USA TODAY, 14 Apr. 2023
  • There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, not even a cirrus wisp or fading contrail.
    — Ross Andersen, The Atlantic, 11 July 2024
  • Airplane traffic, of course, plays a key role in the impact of contrails.
    — NBC News, 28 July 2019
  • The test flights did burn through 2 percent more fuel by avoiding contrails.
    — Justine Calma, The Verge, 9 Aug. 2023
  • The snow hissed violently off the bottoms of my skis to form blue contrails.
    — Tim Neville, New York Times, 24 Feb. 2016
  • In the bright Florida sky, a few contrails fluffed into clouds.
    — Louisa Thomas, New Yorker, 5 May 2025
  • Vintage fabric samples—tweeds, linens, a sky-blue poplin with white contrail stripes—hung from a rack against a wall.
    — Lauren Collins, New Yorker, 15 Sep. 2025
  • Like a jet plane leaving a contrail, a green line began to move across the sky and spread into dancing clouds.
    — Ernie Cowan, San Diego Union-Tribune, 26 Apr. 2026
  • One issue is that just 10 percent of flights create contrails.
    — NBC News, 28 July 2019
  • The plush contrails of a military flyover.
    — Lucas Robinson, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 Nov. 2025
  • How does a plane generate a contrail that in turn becomes a climate trigger?
    — Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 20 Feb. 2020
  • The rocket is barely a speck in the sky now, with an arcing contrail and still-bright engine exhaust.
    — Popular Mechanics, 19 Apr. 2018
  • The sky is clogged with contrails, the straight lines of the bombers, the circles and spirals of the fighters looping around them.
    — Andrew Liptak, The Verge, 31 Mar. 2018
  • The contrail will be brief but brilliant, featuring colors ranging from bright white to aqua to a bit of pink.
    — Gary Robbins, sandiegouniontribune.com, 4 May 2018
  • Pronouncements blazed forth from him but evanesced, leaving only contrails.
    — Literary Hub, 13 Feb. 2026
  • The spectacle fades to a faint streak across a robin’s egg canvas, the contrail widening and then fading away.
    — Eric Barton, Sun Sentinel, 4 Jan. 2026
  • And when these drones fly, a torrent of data will follow them like an invisible contrail.
    — Justin Bachman, Bloomberg.com, 10 May 2017
  • The story also found that flights that avoided contrails burned 2% more jet fuel on their journey.
    — Emily Price, PCMAG, 10 Aug. 2023
  • Tear-gas cannisters soared above us, the contrails spidering toward the earth.
    — Anand Gopal, The New Yorker, 10 Dec. 2023
  • If there are no contrails or clouds surrounding it, the plane is moving against a completely uniform blue sky.
    — Sara Nelson, Discover Magazine, 29 Sep. 2023
  • Meyers’s lines grew icy and severe, distant and distinct, a contrail mingling with the cirrus clouds.
    — Michael Andor Brodeur, Washington Post, 11 Nov. 2022
  • All were during the day and roughly half used the contrail avoiding software to adjust altitude, while half did not.
    — Kyle Arnold, Anchorage Daily News, 14 Aug. 2023
  • It's even claimed to reduce the creation of contrails, which will please some conspiracy theorists.
    — David Szondy may 16, New Atlas, 16 May 2025
  • The comet's display is expected to resemble that of an airplane contrail extending up and to the right.
    — Skyler Caruso, People.com, 24 Oct. 2024
  • Instead of the rainbow contrail design, the triple stripe is made up of TIE fighters, a fun touch.
    — Anthony Karcz, Forbes, 4 May 2023
  • Each new settlement drags a contrail of roads and water lines and restrictions across routes that used to be open to Palestinians.
    — Washington Post, 22 Nov. 2021
  • Another SpaceX launch a couple of weeks earlier had caused a stir with its eye-catching streak of light and contrail.
    — Terry Castleman, Los Angeles Times, 2 Apr. 2024
  • After the show, reader J emailed me a picture, taken last month, of a jet contrail that could’ve been mistaken for a missile, too.
    — Noah Shachtman, WIRED, 10 Nov. 2010
  • If the weather is favorable, viewers in the mid-Atlantic may be able to see the rocket and its contrail, or the tail from the rocket launch.
    — Nick Siano, USA TODAY, 15 June 2021
  • When using the predictions, pilots were able to reduce the total contrail distance by 54%.
    — Cnt Editors, Condé Nast Traveler, 7 Nov. 2024

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