How to Use fretful in a Sentence

fretful

adjective
  • He fell into a fretful sleep.
  • To be robust but sour, like an alarm clock, is to make a fretful noise.
    — The New Yorker, 17 Oct. 2023
  • Dreher’s dance around the issue of race is a fretful, obsessive one.
    — Sarah Jones, New Republic, 25 Jan. 2018
  • Pig is fretful and frightened about something lodged inside her head.
    — oregonlive, 4 Feb. 2022
  • The curtain was drawn, and, after a minute or two, the crowd would become fretful.
    — David Denby, The New Yorker, 23 Mar. 2020
  • Two of his fretful clients went so far as to pull all of their money out of the market, against his advice.
    — Robert Weisman, BostonGlobe.com, 3 Sep. 2019
  • Before trying to support a fretful teenager, tense adults should take steps to calm their own nerves.
    — Lisa Damour, New York Times, 11 Mar. 2020
  • Only long, fretful days haunted by many versions of the same question.
    — Candace Buckner, Anchorage Daily News, 30 Jan. 2023
  • McArthur’s turn to fly — and Behnken’s turn to spend that fretful time on the ground with their son, now 7.
    — Washington Post, 20 Apr. 2021
  • King was fretful about the delay; sponsors were clamoring for posts.
    — Rachel Monroe, The New Yorker, 13 Apr. 2017
  • For a lot of fretful white people, not just Phil Collins fans, those words may be music to the ears.
    — Jody Rosen, New York Times, 27 Aug. 2020
  • But many still will attach that optimism to a fretful sentiment.
    — Dan Wiederer, chicagotribune.com, 2 Mar. 2018
  • Overall, the results point to a world that is, despite its manifold woes, more happy than fretful.
    — Jeffrey Kluger, TIME, 25 June 2024
  • Meetings are held about how and whether to respond; fretful talent partners must be reassured.
    — New York Times, 17 Apr. 2022
  • Initially, Kotb was fretful about telling Schiffman about her desire to adopt.
    — Perri Ormont Blumberg, Southern Living, 25 Oct. 2019
  • Moments of humor peek through in the writing, but the overarching mood is one of angsty, fretful suspense.
    — Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 2 July 2019
  • One of them has to crash, and my money’s on him — a nervous, fretful mess, undone by my mother’s break from reality.
    — Longreads, 20 Apr. 2022
  • Now, for many in the business world, that question feels almost passé, part of an earlier, more fretful era of narratives.
    — Talmon Joseph Smith, New York Times, 9 Jan. 2025
  • Fried potatoes are one of mankind’s greatest inventions, but deep-frying at home can be as fussy and fretful as clipping a frantic cat’s claws.
    — Washington Post, 17 June 2021
  • The story at the opposite corner of the country is no less fascinating or fretful.
    — Joan Meiners, The Arizona Republic, 11 Aug. 2022
  • An expectant parent of a certain type—cash-flush and availed of benzodiazepine, or maybe just fretful—will be dizzied by the options.
    — Damon Beres, The Atlantic, 28 Nov. 2022
  • Israel is distinctly fretful at the sight of an American ally so swiftly thrown aside.
    — The Economist, 17 Oct. 2019
  • The quintessential late-’80s teen, Ryder here plays a fretful mom.
    — Keith Phipps, Vulture, 27 Nov. 2025
  • Even with seven machines, Carragher says queues at the Simons Center are long and fretful.
    — Eric Hand, Science | AAAS, 23 Jan. 2020
  • As the fretful Pisces Moon meets up with apprehensive Saturn, sticking with what’s known might seem safer.
    — Tarot.com, Hartford Courant, 31 May 2024
  • Which is neurotically fretful for a chef who prides himself on buying the very best ingredients in the market.
    — John Mariani, Forbes, 3 Sep. 2024
  • In São Paulo, Lula admitted to feeling fretful about the delay.
    — Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, 23 Jan. 2023
  • The period leading up to the expansion draft in June should be especially fretful for teams boasting depth along the blue line.
    — Tal Pinchevsky, New York Times, 11 Oct. 2016
  • What Luhrmann describes, however, is a more fretful relationship with the divine.
    — Anne Enright, The New York Review of Books, 23 Feb. 2021
  • From my earliest days, the special produced in me only a fretful anxiety, leading to an eventual refusal to watch it.
    — Caitlin Flanagan, The Atlantic, 24 Nov. 2020

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