How to Use defund in a Sentence

defund

verb
  • Trump is working to defund the same project now.
    — Josephine Stratman, New York Daily News, 26 Feb. 2026
  • Lies about trans kids must not be used to try to defund public schools.
    — Naperville Sun, Chicago Tribune, 6 June 2025
  • One side of me wants to say, yeah, defund the police, take it away.
    — ExpressNews.com, 22 June 2020
  • Biden even countered calls to defund the police in an ode to them.
    — Ryan King, Washington Examiner, 15 May 2023
  • We‘re not going to defund this.
    — Asher Notheis, The Washington Examiner, 23 Mar. 2026
  • Those schools, in turn, can now defund programs based on low numbers.
    — Brittany Allen, Literary Hub, 20 Mar. 2026
  • City and counties that try to defund the police would lose their state funding.
    — Gray Rohrer, orlandosentinel.com, 22 Sep. 2020
  • Many demonstrators have called for the city to defund the police.
    — CBS News, 13 June 2020
  • That’s because people don’t vote for Democrats to defund things.
    — Dominic Pino, National Review, 28 Mar. 2022
  • There’s still a very strong movement to defund the police, even in the middle of a five-alarm fire.
    — Frederick Kaufman, Harper's Magazine, 26 Feb. 2024
  • Zemault’s death prompted protests and calls to defund the police.
    — Jacob Beltran, San Antonio Express-News, 5 Feb. 2021
  • The shootings come amid a movement by some to reform or defund the police.
    — Sharon Coolidge, The Enquirer, 17 Aug. 2020
  • Trump has pledged to defund gender-affirming care—and to ban it for minors.
    — Madison Pauly and Sarah Szilagy, Them, 5 Nov. 2024
  • Many of the letter writers urged the council to defund the police.
    — Sharon Coolidge, Cincinnati.com, 19 June 2020
  • Calls to defund the police rang out in protests across the country and through the halls of city government.
    — Jennifer Swann, The New Republic, 27 Oct. 2020
  • Abbott has also promised to defund cities that defund the police.
    — Rachel Royster, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 6 Jan. 2026
  • Thirteen percent of whites and 28% of blacks wanted to defund them.
    — Karlyn Bowman, Forbes, 7 Apr. 2021
  • As a call to action, defund the police can have a variety of meanings.
    — Alexandra Ossola, Quartz, 9 June 2020
  • Policing scholars tend to see the movement to defund the police in this context.
    — Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2020
  • Rubio has tried to tie Demings to the far-left’s defund the police movement.
    — Skyler Swisher, Orlando Sentinel, 27 Oct. 2022
  • So, why defund the FIC and the NIH?
    — Madhukar Pai, Forbes.com, 12 Aug. 2025
  • Trump has also opened the door for states to defund Planned Parenthood.
    — Liz Brody, Glamour, 10 Feb. 2018
  • Collins has also accused Allred of voting to defund the police.
    — Dallas News, 26 Oct. 2020
  • In Idaho, some conservatives now want the state to defund it.
    — Samantha Chery, Washington Post, 28 Oct. 2022
  • Collins charged that Allred voted to defund the police by $600 million.
    — Dallas News, 19 Oct. 2020
  • This led to an emergency meeting of the student government and widespread calls to defund the group or shut down the event.
    — Jason Willick, WSJ, 20 July 2018
  • But the drumbeat to defund the police has been drowned out by the reality of rising crime rates in cities around the country.
    — Steven P. Dinkin, San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 May 2022
  • No, Biden has explicitly rejected the call by some on the left to defund the police.
    — Calvin Woodward, Star Tribune, 30 Aug. 2020
  • The 30-second spot attacks Biden for wanting to defund the police.
    — TheWeek, 21 Aug. 2020
  • The shooting comes amid calls to defund the police department following the death of Floyd.
    — David Aaro, Fox News, 31 Dec. 2020

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