How to Use fifth column in a Sentence

fifth column

noun
  • And there are fears among the public of a Russian fifth column.
    — William Nattrass, WSJ, 14 Aug. 2022
  • That has led many Israelis to view them as a fifth column and a security threat.
    — Joseph Krauss, San Diego Union-Tribune, 18 Sep. 2019
  • Now, in an echo of the histories of ancient empires, the esteemed elite guard may prove to be a dangerous fifth column.
    — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 25 June 2023
  • Entrepreneurs, hailed and welcomed just a few years earlier, were now painted as a potential fifth column.
    — John Pomfret, The Atlantic, 25 Jan. 2021
  • They for long have been viewed as a fifth column because of their solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
    — Tia Goldenberg, BostonGlobe.com, 6 June 2022
  • It is deeply connected to the efforts of a fringe set of hate groups that see American Muslims as a fifth column bent on subverting the state.
    — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 12 Apr. 2018
  • The Kremlin propaganda that portrays them as fifth column, as agents of the West, has been successful, and people at large look at them as trouble makers.
    — Foreign Affairs, 18 Apr. 2016
  • They are viewed by right-wing Israelis as a fifth column with split loyalties and have been increasingly criticized by government officials.
    — Ruth Eglash, Washington Post, 21 May 2018
  • But that faction has been accused of supporting the Russian forces that have invaded Ukraine, acting as a fifth column for Moscow.
    — Megan Specia, BostonGlobe.com, 7 Jan. 2023
  • For a long time now this Moscow Patriarchate church has been discussed by patriotic intelligentsia as a kind of fifth column.
    — Fred Weir, The Christian Science Monitor, 17 Apr. 2019
  • The letter peddles the old right-wing fantasy of a fifth column of rootless cosmopolitans disarming the country against its enemies, both internal and domestic.
    — Harrison Stetler, The New Republic, 24 May 2021
  • Palestinian citizens of Israel make up about 20% of the country’s population but are often seen as a fifth column and have never before been part of a coalition.
    — Ilan Ben Zion, Chicago Tribune, 20 June 2022
  • In Jerusalem and Haifa, armed volunteers described Palestinian citizens of Israel as a fifth column.
    — John Hudson, Washington Post, 8 Dec. 2023
  • That has led many Israelis to view them as a fifth column allied with the country’s enemies, fears Netanyahu has repeatedly exploited to whip up his right-wing base in election campaigns.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 29 Sep. 2019
  • That’s clearly a factor in the mobilization against Muslims, who are seen as a fifth column of Pakistan articulating a jihadi discourse.
    — Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 31 Mar. 2023
  • Arab leaders say that could help establish faith between Arab citizens and the state after years of distrust, whose origins date to the founding of Israel and the view of the Arab minority as a fifth column.
    — Dina Kraft, The Christian Science Monitor, 12 Mar. 2021
  • There was a corresponding fear the Axis countries had a fifth column in South America that might undermine American interests.
    — Nicholas Reynolds, WSJ, 24 Oct. 2018
  • Similarly, at home fellow Americans have been targeted as fifth column, gang member, super predator and Black identity extremist.
    — Doris Bittar, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 Aug. 2021
  • Some Estonians view the Russian minority as a fifth column laying the groundwork for another Russian invasion.
    — Sophie Pinkham, The New Republic, 3 May 2018
  • Ben Gvir and other right-wing activists used the May 2021 riots to present the Palestinian citizens of Israel as a fifth column, or the enemy within.
    — Orly Halpern, Time, 7 Nov. 2022
  • Russia is also escalating its interference in the internal political life of the rest of Ukraine, including cyberattacks against government and business targets and the use of fifth columns.
    — Adrian Karatnycky, WSJ, 13 July 2017
  • All the orchestration and glamour of the rally, the glory of the Leader, was meant to tell a story—of a nation wounded from within, of a fifth column, of tyrannical foreign countries, of an economic crisis, and of a grandiose account of renewal and coming greatness.
    — Literary Hub, 27 Apr. 2026
  • Hard-nosed critics of Islam and Muslim immigration frequently argue that Islam is incompatible with democracy and freedom, painting Muslims as a fifth column.
    — Jacob McHangama, Time, 9 Aug. 2023
  • In recent months rumors had abounded that a fifth column—a neologism to Britain at the time, now universally understood to refer to traitors living within their country of asylum—had assisted the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
    — Simon Parkin, Time, 2 Nov. 2022
  • The Beijing-Taipei contest for influence in the ethnic Chinese community exacerbated the suspicion that the Chinese represented a fifth column.
    — Taomo Zhou, Foreign Affairs, 11 Feb. 2020

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