How to Use cringe in a Sentence

cringe

1 of 3 verb
  • The dog cringed at the noise.
  • Just the thought of eating broccoli makes me cringe.
  • I always cringe when I hear that song.
  • It's not cringe to care about something and try!
    — Lydia Patrick, MSNBC Newsweek, 11 Sep. 2025
  • Some folks who like wolves cringe at the idea of wolves being trapped or shot.
    — Ben Long, Outdoor Life, 6 Mar. 2020
  • Try and get through this one without cringing.
    — Austin Perry Outkick, FOXNews.com, 16 May 2026
  • There are moments when viewers might not know whether to laugh or cringe.
    — Chris Kornelis, New York Times, 31 July 2023
  • The temptation is to look away, to move on, to cringe and avert your gaze.
    — Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 3 Dec. 2020
  • No one wants to cringe at their color in the mirror, so don't let that be you.
    — Maya Allen, Marie Claire, 10 Apr. 2020
  • These two teams, as much as their fanbases may cringe at the mere thought, are a lot alike.
    — Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY, 7 Oct. 2021
  • Everyone thought the first season was so cringe and felt so bad for her.
    — Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 14 May 2026
  • Locals of the Far North cringed when tourists pulled out their lighters.
    — Tom Stienstra, SFChronicle.com, 7 June 2019
  • There are myriad reasons why this would be, as the kids say, cringe.
    — Brendan Menapace, Spin, 4 Oct. 2023
  • Anna has a good ear for rhythm, and tends to cringe when left with no choice but to scramble it.
    — Zach Helfand, New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2025
  • Bills can be seen visibly cringing in both clips as the two dancers fall to the ground.
    — Tabitha Parent, PEOPLE, 29 Sep. 2025
  • Mingione cringed when asked if any of his players had gotten hurt by a hit by pitch.
    — Mitch Light, New York Times, 22 May 2026
  • Pub purists, meanwhile, are cringing.
    — Deirdre Bardolf, FOXNews.com, 6 Sep. 2025
  • Online, this aversion to cringe has taken many forms.
    — Rachel Hale, USA Today, 25 Apr. 2026
  • That’s why part of me wants to celebrate this moment, and part of me wants to cringe.
    — Joseph Goodman | [email protected], al, 1 Sep. 2021
  • You get cringed out when things are earnest or something, but then the music is a way to channel it.
    — Bailey Richards, PEOPLE, 25 Nov. 2025
  • Part of me cringes at optimism, at the word hope, which is fraught with history.
    — Hazlitt, 15 Sep. 2022
  • And those weren’t the only comments that made some of his associates cringe.
    — Kim Masters, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 Oct. 2023
  • No creator sets out to inspire anger, hatred and cringe among viewers.
    — Smriti Mundhra, The Hollywood Reporter, 8 Aug. 2023
  • Any number of things can make someone cringe, cower, shut their eyes and cover their ears.
    — Jenn Harris, Los Angeles Times, 1 Jan. 2024
  • The video went viral, his supporters cringed and his critics pounced.
    — Zolan Kanno-Youngs, New York Times, 4 June 2023
  • The couple cringed at the attention.
    — Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Washington Post, 19 Mar. 2026
  • This isn’t the first time that Guthrie has publicly cringed over having to ask the question.
    — Emlyn Travis, Entertainment Weekly, 20 Oct. 2025
  • But there’s no reason to cringe any longer when the camera pans to the Dallas sideline.
    — Dallas News, 3 Oct. 2022
  • McCord wasn't the day's first star to make followers cringe amid the crisis.
    — Brendan Morrow, The Week, 24 Feb. 2022
  • The result was an awkward Frankenstein of tone and rhythm that could make the corniest dad cringe.
    — Caleb Madison, The Atlantic, 28 Oct. 2023

cringe

2 of 3 noun
  • The whole thing is so … cringe.
    — Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 21 Oct. 2025
  • The cringe factor almost works for the movie.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 15 Nov. 2025
  • Let your audience age out, grow apart and see you as cringe.
    — Rolling Stone Culture Council, Rolling Stone, 21 Nov. 2025
  • But isn’t there some joy to be found in the collective cringe?
    — Smriti Mundhra, The Hollywood Reporter, 8 Aug. 2023
  • Will’s crush and his fear of appearing cringe.
    — Ben Rosenstock, Vulture, 6 Aug. 2025
  • There's probably a new term for cringe.
    — Kayla Grant, PEOPLE, 19 May 2026
  • There's probably a new term for cringe.
    — Kayla Grant, PEOPLE, 15 May 2026
  • There's probably a new term for cringe.
    — Hannah Sacks, PEOPLE, 14 May 2026
  • The Office was all about the cringe moments.
    — Raechal Shewfelt, Entertainment Weekly, 11 Nov. 2025
  • Mainstream pop culture is unashamedly cringe and has been for a long time.
    — Daisy Jones, Vogue, 26 Jan. 2023
  • There is nothing so cringe as seeing an adult who does not work there roam the halls of a high school.
    — Cydney Lee, Vulture, 5 Aug. 2021
  • All of these exchanges inevitably end in some sort of cringe-comedic stalemate.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 24 Jan. 2026
  • No, because all these stories are true, even the most cringe-worthy ones.
    — Chris Gardner, The Hollywood Reporter, 30 July 2022
  • All that’s left is some hopeless cringe, stunt guest stars and unfunny jokes.
    — Lydia Patrick, MSNBC Newsweek, 24 Oct. 2025
  • All that's left is some hopeless cringe, stunt guest stars and unfunny jokes.
    — Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 23 Oct. 2025
  • That did not mute the offense for a cringe-worthy stretch against two of baseball’s worst.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 Aug. 2021
  • The cringe of a bad date is something nearly everyone can agree on.
    — oregonlive, 2 Nov. 2022
  • So, that wasn’t really a cringe moment.
    — Senior Television, Los Angeles Times, 24 Mar. 2026
  • Many people can’t afford a sick day and cringe at losing income!
    — Teresa Ghilarducci, Forbes, 28 Dec. 2021
  • Every cringe and wince from the disgusted press corps was his reward.
    — David Reamer, Anchorage Daily News, 2 Jan. 2023
  • Some of the puff pieces Chafkin digs up are cringe-worthy in retrospect.
    — Moira Weigel, The New Republic, 20 Dec. 2021
  • The sample is cringe-worthy enough on its own but becomes even more painful in context.
    — Jeff Ihaza, Rolling Stone, 3 Mar. 2022
  • But with such a long history, there's bound to be some cringe-worthy moments.
    — Janaya Wecker, Good Housekeeping, 14 Nov. 2022
  • Yet there have been just as many cringe-worthy moments in figure skating, too.
    — Dave Skretta, Chicago Tribune, 15 Feb. 2026
  • The film has spawned a slew of sequels, some successful, some cringe-worthy.
    — Amy MacKelden, Harper's BAZAAR, 25 Aug. 2022
  • Some cringe at his crude comments about women and immigrants.
    — David Noyce, The Salt Lake Tribune, 16 Nov. 2022
  • But if cringe killed viral challenges, then what went wrong in 2020?
    — Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 24 May 2022
  • For the record, Dugan agreed with her students about Romeo’s cringe quotient.
    — Lisa Gutierrez, Kansas City Star, 15 Mar. 2026
  • We’ve been treated to the heartfelt and the funny, as well as the bizarre and the cringe-worthy.
    — Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times, 10 Sep. 2021
  • That’s not to say that last week’s episode didn’t include some cringe-tacular moments.
    — oregonlive, 24 Feb. 2022

cringe

3 of 3 adjective
  • There is a cringe factor that works and a cringe factor that doesn’t.
    — Rosa Escandon, Forbes, 20 Oct. 2024
  • Personas are so cringe that people will be embarrassed to use these in a work call.
    — Brian X. Chen, New York Times, 8 Feb. 2024
  • In fact, Belly’s choices as an adult are so cringe that some moms are reevaluating everything.
    — Stephanie McNeal, Glamour, 4 Aug. 2025
  • Yes, Newsom’s new podcast is cringe, columnist Anita Chabria writes.
    — Ryan Fonseca, Los Angeles Times, 23 Apr. 2025
  • The fear of being cringe or dating someone who is cringe can be a real barrier to connection, the one thing most daters are trying to find.
    — Myisha Battle, Time, 29 Apr. 2025
  • The first-term council member deserves all the reprimands being heaped on her — most of all because the video that set off this pathetic episode is so cringe.
    — Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 26 June 2025
  • Other installments are more hit-or-miss, particularly in their use of cringe comedy.
    — Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 27 May 2025
  • Most of the humor is cringe comedy, like explaining to his father the difference between daddies, bears and otters.
    — Jason Zinoman, New York Times, 13 May 2024
  • In fact, some of it was pretty cringe and on the nose and reminded me of being a 13-year-old discovering Tumblr for the first time.
    — Riann Phillip, Vogue, 26 July 2023
  • Robinson’s humor is wildly cringe and enjoyable as usual, as the physical comedy master has to say very little to elicit laughs.
    — Glenn Garner, Deadline, 11 Mar. 2025
  • The bits involving actors — like a segment where Kelce met himself as a 14-year-old and as an older person — were more cringe than comedy.
    — Dan Shanoff, The Athletic, 4 Jan. 2025
  • Some jokes are uncomfortably cringe and downright inappropriate — a Girls Gone Wild joke in a Muppets movie?
    — Barry Levitt, Vulture, 20 June 2024
  • Was Timberlake’s cultural stock — already wobbling at dangerously cringe levels in recent years — about to take another hit?
    — Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 13 Sep. 2023
  • Hong flirts with cringe comedy as Donghwa prattles on about trying to live only with what’s necessary and not rely on others, also rhapsodizing about his emotional response to an ancient ginkgo tree at the temple.
    — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019
  • Part of the bloat stems from Fielder's penchant for luxuriating in moments of awkwardness, steeping the viewer in their own discomfort long after most shows — even most cringe comedies — would have mercifully cut away.
    — EW.com, 6 Nov. 2023
  • The virality potential of cringe marketing mirrors the explosive popularity of cringe humor more generally.
    — Anton Naianzin, Forbes.com, 19 May 2025
  • In an environment where stability is anything but guaranteed, mastering the art of self-promotion—without veering into cringe territory—can be the difference between staying overlooked and staying employed.
    — Julia Korn, Forbes, 17 Mar. 2025
  • The Curse, a new series premiering this weekend on both Showtime and Paramount+ with Showtime, is an epic masterpiece of cringe comedy — 10 weekly episodes of engulfing discomfort, pain and despair.
    — Tom Gliatto, Peoplemag, 10 Nov. 2023

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