How to Use gangplank in a Sentence

gangplank

noun
  • The plane stopped, and the gangplank-like stairs plopped down.
    — Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, 19 Apr. 2021
  • The migrants then walked one- by-one down a gangplank to land.
    — Washington Post, 20 Aug. 2019
  • Flash runs up the gangplank, onstage, and off the other side.
    — Jill Lepore, The New Yorker, 26 Aug. 2023
  • When Franklin walks up the gangplank to sail to Europe, the stairs come out now.
    — D. T. Max, The New Yorker, 18 Sep. 2023
  • On the gangplank, locals line up, waiting — some on four-wheelers, some with dogs, some with carts.
    — Megan Bush Moody, Alaska Dispatch News, 25 June 2017
  • In the best of circumstances, a pregnancy was a walk down a gangplank.
    — Karen Russell, The New Yorker, 4 June 2017
  • As the gangplank lowers, the crowd forms a haphazard line and marches down the dock and onboard.
    — Megan Bush Moody, Alaska Dispatch News, 25 June 2017
  • Miners came down the gangplanks hefting three tons of gold from far northwest Canada.
    — Smithsonian, 24 Oct. 2019
  • Sailors with side arms stood watch by the gangplank, seemingly oblivious to the cold rain lashing their faces.
    — New York Times, 22 May 2021
  • Sailors with sidearms stood watch by the gangplank, seemingly oblivious to the cold rain lashing their faces.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 22 May 2021
  • But then the queen, wearing tasteful low-heeled pumps, stepped out onto the slick gangplank and began sliding down the incline.
    — Brittany Bowker, BostonGlobe.com, 8 Sep. 2022
  • On the day of our departure, two male crew members dressed in short red jumpsuits greeted passengers on the gangplank.
    — Washington Post, 31 Dec. 2021
  • Maybe this is the summer to extend that vision past the gangplank, and into the state’s interior.
    — Susan Glaser, cleveland, 8 Apr. 2021
  • Crews needed to run 1,000 feet of firehose across the dock, up the gangplank and then up the superstructure steps.
    — oregonlive, 12 Feb. 2023
  • After shuffling down the gangplank, officials took their temperatures in tents draped with the country’s flag.
    — Lizzie Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle, 6 Mar. 2021
  • Nearby, Sayed Hassan waits for us at the bottom of the gangplank, smiling broadly in his long green robe – a galabia.
    — Francine Kiefer, Christian Science Monitor, 1 Apr. 2025
  • The couple held a pose at the ship's railing for the press boys crowding the gangplank with their notebooks and Speed Graphic cameras.
    — Paul Hendrickson, Town & Country, 19 Dec. 2012
  • One day while rollerblading through the city, VIctoria saw Yankee, and skated up the gangplank.
    — Virginia Chamlee, PEOPLE, 12 Dec. 2025
  • Sailors, many of them already desperately ill, stumbled down the gangplank and into the dockyards of Messina.
    — Anne Thériault, Longreads, 3 July 2018
  • Because there is no escalator to the top of the dome, Chalamet would have to summit a maze of catwalks and gangplanks in full protective gear.
    — Mattie Kahn, Vogue, 23 Dec. 2025
  • In soundless footage, military officers watched Chagossians descend a gangplank—the fading record of a heritage visit.
    — Cullen Murphy, The Atlantic, 15 June 2022
  • That lad with the strange accent descending the gangplank in New York just might be the one who discovers our next Northwest Passage.
    — Rinker Buck, WSJ, 9 Mar. 2018
  • This large wooden ship has lidded storage, a retractable gangplank, cloth sails, four molded pirates (including a captain with a hook), two cannons, two sharks, a gunpowder keg, and more!
    — Jenny Williams, WIRED, 5 Dec. 2011
  • From the gangplank of the Slave I, ascending into the skies, Mayfield aims a cycler rifle at a cache of rhydonium and blows the whole refinery sky high.
    — Alex Kane, USA TODAY, 12 Dec. 2020
  • The brand casually staged a spaceship landing in the museum’s historic courtyard, with the runway resembling a futuristic gangplank.
    — Emilia Petrarca, The Cut, 8 Mar. 2018
  • Those worlds are stark monochromatic paintings, vast canvases slashed through with hard lines — a floor-to-ceiling column, a long tilting gangplank, an illuminated rectangle flown in at a precarious angle.
    — Sara Holdren, Vulture, 1 May 2026
  • There's any number of opportunities for mishaps, and with that comes this wonderful parade of guest stars every episode, like lambs to the slaughter, meekly, joyously walking up the gangplank, not remotely aware of what will befall them.
    — Sydney Bucksbaum, EW.com, 5 Sep. 2024
  • In New York City, Prabhupada descended the gangplank carrying a small suitcase, an umbrella, and a rumpled bag of cereal.
    — Ashley Stimpson, Longreads, 19 Feb. 2022
  • But the location proved too windy (and perhaps elevated) for unloading human passengers who were to walk across a gangplank, even if the midtown location was more convenient than the airship landing field in Lakehurst.
    — Starre Vartan, Popular Mechanics, 31 Mar. 2020
  • That started with Paul Maurice wearing khaki shorts and a breezy, blue shirt, as if to dress himself into a good mood — or at least try after a season when his two-time Stanley Cup champions admirably walked the gangplank.
    — Dave Hyde, Sun Sentinel, 16 Apr. 2026

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