How to Use ford in a Sentence

ford

verb
  • Only one of them has to worry about whether or not her team of oxen can ford the river.
    — Alexis Soloski, New York Times, 22 Jan. 2017
  • Its power plant and suspension would rather avoid fording streams or two-stepping over rocks.
    — John Scott Lewinski, Ars Technica, 4 Sep. 2018
  • The idea is to slow down an attacker by forcing them to ford the river or position a new bridge.
    — David Axe, Forbes, 3 May 2023
  • Sam will topple over in the middle of fording a river if his fast-draining stamina gauge runs out.
    — Adrian Chen, New York Times, 3 Mar. 2020
  • Ram says the half-ton Hellcat can also ford up to 32 inches of water.
    — Austin Irwin, Car and Driver, 31 Aug. 2023
  • Those of us headed out the next morning had to ford the stream — with or without shoes, which made for a good conversation starter.
    — Mike Eckel, San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 Jan. 2023
  • Wagons could ford the Brazos during dry seasons or take a ferry when the river rose.
    — Michael Barnes, Austin American Statesman, 6 Nov. 2025
  • Oh, and just in case you get caught fording a deep river, these lights are waterproof to a depth of almost 10 feet.
    — Richard Mann, Field & Stream, 25 Nov. 2019
  • But its approach and departure angles do call for care when traversing ruts, fording streams and cresting hills.
    — Larry Printz, Dallas News, 10 Aug. 2019
  • Before long, a community once known as a place to ford the river was a key stop on a growing railroad network.
    — Mike Baker, New York Times, 28 Apr. 2023
  • But after fording fast rivers, trekking through forest and braving mountain roads, the journalist found him.
    — The Economist, 23 June 2018
  • To get there, Maldonado had to ford a river in knee-deep water, using a cable to guide him across.
    — Ivan Watson, Jo Shelley and Patrick Gillespie, CNN, 28 Sep. 2017
  • The Jeep was compact enough to carry in gliders, could ford rivers with ease, and was extremely reliable.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 21 Sep. 2021
  • To continue on the trail, which leads to a waterfall, hikers needed to ford the 20-foot wide stream on slippery boulders.
    — Los Angeles Times, 14 Jan. 2023
  • Along the way, as any one-time player well knows, a variety of challenges present themselves, from hunting for food to fording rivers and avoiding diseases.
    — Sophie Weiner, Popular Mechanics, 3 Mar. 2017
  • It wasn’t expected that a civilian or even standard-police SUV could ford the floods — and the water was rising.
    — Colin Warren-Hicks, USA TODAY, 19 Sep. 2020
  • In one town, residents strung a cable across a river to ford it in knee-deep water because the bridge connecting the two sides had been washed a football field's length downriver.
    — Patrick Gillespie, CNN, 2 Oct. 2017
  • The Carthaginians funneled the Iberian tribes into narrow crossings where the river’s swift waters were shallow enough to ford on foot.
    — Alex Fox, Smithsonian Magazine, 24 Apr. 2020
  • Early in the evacuation, as the parents grapple with things like having to ford a river that is mined with bombs, Sovanh runs off and gets lost in the endless throngs.
    — Kenneth Turan, chicagotribune.com, 27 June 2019
  • Either ford the Inhulets River on the western edge of the sector, or the Dnipro River on the southern edge.
    — David Axe, Forbes, 4 Oct. 2022
  • The Forest Service no longer installs a seasonal footbridge, so hikers can either ford the river or cross the large log at the main crossing.
    — oregonlive, 30 July 2022
  • That will return the river to patterns recorded in the pre-Soviet era, when in hot summers some parts of the Dnipro became so shallow it could be forded.
    — Marc Champion, Bloomberg.com, 6 June 2023
  • Then from his balcony, Klawiter watched as a recent-model Chevy Silverado attempted to ford the surge.
    — Robert Klemko, SI.com, 5 Sep. 2017
  • Will the misdirected Håkan ford the Mississippi and pass Huck Finn lighting out the other way?
    — Lawrence Downes, New York Times, 2 May 2018
  • Remember trying to ford your oxen through the rivers of Oregon Trail or decorating your igloo on Club Penguin?
    — Hannah Rimm, refinery29.com, 27 May 2020
  • Fording suspects that had the violence in Charlottesville occurred before the Legislature acted, the law may not have come to fruition.
    — John Sharp, AL.com, 20 Aug. 2017
  • Despite the high-voltage battery pack under the rear seat and cargo floor, the 4xe can ford 30 inches of water, the same as conventionally powered Jeeps.
    — Mark Phelan, Detroit Free Press, 3 Sep. 2020
  • Turned back at the bridge in at the border town of Ciudad Hidalgo, some the migrants forded the river and were met with violence by National Guard troops.
    — Dudley Althaus, ExpressNews.com, 22 Feb. 2020
  • Prior to the war, Russia’s intention to advance via this road could be seen by the building of a pontoon bridge to ford a river on the Belarussian side of the border across from Chernobyl.
    — Sébastien Roblin, Popular Mechanics, 3 May 2023
  • Every stretch had brought its own challenges, but these past few days had been especially brutal, the crewmembers fording streams, inching through hub-deep mud, sleeping in the car, dodging hail under rubber blankets, catching a night’s rest at a farmhouse as violent rain pounded the roof.
    — Eric Moskowitz, The Atlantic, 31 May 2026

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