How to Use coot in a Sentence

coot

noun
  • Don't mind him—he's just a crazy old coot.
  • Her old coot of a husband doddered over to see what the trouble was.
    — George Saunders, The New Yorker, 19 Feb. 2016
  • At the edge of the property is a pond where swans, mallards and coots paddle around.
    — Pete Wells, New York Times, 24 Apr. 2018
  • Great egrets and snowy egrets, along with blue herons, and the inevitable coot, seem to be year-round residents.
    — Tom Stienstra, SFChronicle.com, 30 Jan. 2020
  • Spotted salamanders breed here and night herons roost, alongside coots and grebes.
    — Alexis Soloski, New York Times, 13 May 2020
  • He’s given the Heisman by a crusty old coot guarding the entrance.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 3 Apr. 2025
  • Even playing in front of tiny audiences, this ol’ coot flouncing about onstage, is a blast.
    — Tristram Lozaw, BostonGlobe.com, 3 Apr. 2023
  • Under the proposal, goose, duck and coot hunting will be allowed only on boat.
    — Will Houston, The Mercury News, 6 June 2019
  • Five of them — including an American coot and a western gull — have died.
    — Los Angeles Times, 7 Oct. 2021
  • Then, like winged Door Dash, Shadow arrived with a water bird called a coot.
    — Lila Seidman, Los Angeles Times, 3 Mar. 2026
  • In fact, American coot families are never far from their nests.
    — Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 30 Nov. 2017
  • Dern plays crusty old coots as well as anyone in the business, but the background on his lonely golden years is unexplored.
    — Colin Covert, Detroit Free Press, 1 Mar. 2018
  • On someone else this fate might be a crusher, but Sportcoat is the type of stubborn coot on whom doom roosts lightly, if at all.
    — Junot Díaz, New York Times, 29 Feb. 2020
  • After Jackie laid the egg, Shadow arrived with a coot — a water bird.
    — Lila Seidman, Los Angeles Times, 25 Feb. 2026
  • Although coot chicks and grebe chicks are the same size, the young grebes are probably protected by riding on their parents' backs.
    — Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 30 Nov. 2017
  • Rooney was an elderly columnist, too, latterly in the news for saying the sorts of things a decaying old coot would say.
    — Bill Wyman, Vulture, 28 Feb. 2025
  • The movie gives us just enough horny youngsters, references to pot, and old coots with grudges to fill screen time until the special-effects guys go to work.
    — John Defore, The Hollywood Reporter, 24 Mar. 2018
  • Is the abundance of plastic in Eurasian coot nests necessarily bad?
    — Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 7 Mar. 2025
  • Unable to obtain carcasses of Eurasian coot or teal, the researchers used the wing bones of two female mallard ducks.
    — Franz Lidz, New York Times, 28 Aug. 2023
  • On a recent cool morning here, mallards flew overhead, pelicans swam on the lake, coots picked bugs out of the mud, and a lone doe sauntered through tall grass.
    — Adam Popescu, New York Times, 20 Mar. 2018
  • Birds like woodpeckers, heron, egrets, ibis, coots, ducks and osprey can be found in the park along with alligators, otters and manatees.
    — Patrick Connolly, orlandosentinel.com, 10 July 2019
  • The Natufians picked small wing bones from the Eurasian teal and the Eurasian coot to best mimic the sound of birds of prey native to the area.
    — Teresa Nowakowski, Smithsonian Magazine, 15 June 2023
  • If the canary wouldn’t sing, if the milkman was late, if the Pekingese had fleas, if an old coot in a starched collar had a heart attack on the way to church, that was the smog.
    — Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times, 26 Mar. 2026
  • The wetland attracts birds, such as coots and tricolored blackbirds, and also recharges the aquifer that the roots of cottonwoods and willows tap into.
    — Ian James, Los Angeles Times, 26 May 2024
  • Waterfowl, including great egrets and American coots, are finding the changes to their liking.
    — Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11 Oct. 2017
  • Most of my fellow members of the media laughed at Harry and portrayed him as a stubborn ol’ coot who probably belonged in the nuthouse.
    — oregonlive, 18 May 2020
  • At the Laguna Grande restoration area, American coots bob in open water fringed with cattails.
    — Ian James, AZCentral.com, 19 Apr. 2020
  • But Wayne hasn’t revealed his intentions to the property’s owner, a withered old coot who greets all visitors with a wave of his shotgun.
    — John Defore, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 Mar. 2022
  • Joe Biden is a vain, shallow, dishonest, foolish, self-serving, cynical, exploitative, dim old coot.
    — Kevin D. Williamson, National Review, 1 Apr. 2020
  • Other waterfowl, such as the American coot and the northern shoveler, are even more numerous.
    — Elena Bruess, San Antonio Express-News, 8 Jan. 2022

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