How to Use dog whistle in a Sentence

dog whistle

noun
  • The dog whistles have turned into fire alarms.
    — Brady Brickner-Wood, New Yorker, 7 Jan. 2026
  • That's not even a dog whistle anymore.
    — Louis Casiano, FOXNews.com, 12 Nov. 2025
  • The comments Otis makes on his blog aren’t racist dog whistles.
    — Anne Branigin, The Root, 3 Mar. 2018
  • But think about the dog whistle that in some instances has been far louder.
    — NBC News, 29 Nov. 2020
  • If two out of three of those descriptors scream dog whistle to you — ding ding ding!
    — Alanna Bennett, refinery29.com, 14 Mar. 2025
  • As a teen, Rhinehart could hear sounds like dog whistles when no one else could.
    — Yessenia Funes, Curbed, 11 Aug. 2023
  • These students think, or have been taught to think, that free speech is just a dog whistle for the alt-right.
    — Daniel Henninger, WSJ, 11 Oct. 2017
  • There is no outrage because the people who were able to hear the dog whistle.
    — Michael Gfoeller and David H. Rundell, Newsweek, 16 Jan. 2025
  • The dog whistle comes from the top, and the middle and lower levels act on it.
    — Jina Moore, New York Times, 30 Oct. 2017
  • Others use language or images seen as racist dog whistles.
    — Connor Greene, Time, 16 Oct. 2025
  • There’s a school of thought that believes that every instrument that makes a sound is a dog whistle.
    — Rich Lowry, National Review, 8 May 2023
  • Guys, go ahead, bring on the racist and misogynistic name-calling and dog whistles.
    — Laura Washington, Chicago Tribune, 29 July 2024
  • For the chief law enforcement officer to use a dog whistle like that is appalling.
    — Jessica Estepa, USA TODAY, 13 Feb. 2018
  • One of them uses a word that is on its face offensive, and the other one uses sort of a racist dog whistle.
    — Stephanie Ebbert, BostonGlobe.com, 1 June 2018
  • Monday was not the first time Jiang addressed dog whistles at the White House.
    — Tanya A. Christian, Essence, 12 May 2020
  • For decades, America has relied on subtext and dog whistle, and in all that time the sphinx has laid waste to us.
    — Colin Dickey, Longreads, 31 Aug. 2017
  • First, here is a piece exploring the dangerous rise of racist dog whistles in modern media.
    — Ellen McGirt, Fortune, 31 May 2018
  • Everyone who didn’t vote for this man knows that a presidential all-caps tweet is the highest pitch of his racist dog whistle.
    — Stephen A. Crockett Jr., The Root, 28 Mar. 2018
  • In its paper-thin hypocrisy, his video epistle Was a minute-long rendition of his usual dog whistle.
    — John Lithgow, The New Yorker, 27 Sep. 2021
  • Along with this was the racist dog whistles the Republicans persist in blowing.
    — Alaska Dispatch News, 20 Aug. 2017
  • His latest false birther claims to Baier are another racist dog whistle in a history of such language.
    — Sarah Beth Hensley, ABC News, 22 Jan. 2024
  • Even in 1968, though, Wallace’s dog whistle couldn’t win him any states outside the South.
    — Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 24 Aug. 2020
  • Anti-Raider supporters claimed the R was a pro-Raider symbol, like a racist dog whistle.
    — New York Times, 30 June 2021
  • But what Trump has done is given a green light, a dog whistle to those who would rewrite history, who would use that history as a tool.
    — Griff Witte, Washington Post, 19 Feb. 2018
  • This is all just a roundabout way of saying that Playhouse was, in a sense, music to my ears — a dog whistle that snapped me to attention.
    — Tom Gliatto, People.com, 24 May 2025
  • Already, Zarutska’s story has become a dog whistle for many on the right and an inconvenience for those on the left.
    — Chicago Tribune, Twin Cities, 11 Sep. 2025
  • The ultrasonic organ, made from dog whistles, may get a reaction from aliens who have a broader hearing range than humans.
    — Eliza Strickland, IEEE Spectrum, 24 July 2018
  • Your article is a soft racist dog whistle and divides Blacks, Jews and Palestinians.
    — Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 7 May 2024
  • The line inspired a heated debate with many online critics insisting the ad was a dog whistle promoting white supremacy.
    — James Hibberd, HollywoodReporter, 7 Aug. 2025
  • This acerbic novel's title, Smile and Look Pretty, is both a dog whistle and a rallying cry.
    — Rachel King, Fortune, 26 June 2021

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