How to Use gleeful in a Sentence

gleeful

adjective
  • The past 12 months marked a year of kid stuff for gleeful grown-ups.
    — Faran Krentcil, InStyle, 31 Dec. 2025
  • But there’s more to it than gleeful perversions of genre.
    — Carolina A. Miranda, The Atlantic, 5 Mar. 2026
  • There is soon going to be a means of reaching this gleeful nirvana.
    — Lance Eliot, Forbes, 27 Jan. 2022
  • There was to be no shopping for wedding gowns with a gleeful bridal party.
    — Jordan Runtagh, Peoplemag, 10 Nov. 2022
  • The camera cut to White, who watched in a room nearby, gleeful.
    — Kurt Streeter, New York Times, 6 Mar. 2023
  • Urías held up his arms, pointing to Pollock, in a gleeful shock.
    — Houston Mitchell Assistant Sports Editor, Los Angeles Times, 25 Aug. 2021
  • Church types with a kind of gleeful aggressiveness and takes quick breaths.
    — David W. Brown, The Atlantic, 29 Sep. 2017
  • Some politicians seemed almost gleeful at the new state of affairs.
    — New York Times, 12 Nov. 2020
  • The mouth is stretched into a gleeful, toothy grin, toeing the line between cheer and evil.
    — Sharon Mizota, latimes.com, 20 Jan. 2018
  • With all due respect, Madame Speaker—some of us think this is very gleeful!
    — Lynn Yaeger, Vogue, 3 Nov. 2019
  • The meme features a picture of Wyatt looking gleeful with her hands over her mouth.
    — Tabitha Parent, PEOPLE, 24 Oct. 2025
  • In the winter stillness on a frozen lake, a man’s gleeful howl torpedoed the quietude.
    — Julia Daye, Miami Herald, 6 Feb. 2024
  • For the sheer gleeful joy with which its participants abuse themselves and each other.
    — Frank Scheck, HollywoodReporter, 25 June 2026
  • Take a look at the recent share price performance of handset makers and there’s not much left to be gleeful about.
    — Tim Culpan | Bloomberg, Washington Post, 4 Sep. 2019
  • The gleeful oligarch emerged from jail pledging to overthrow Mr Nazarbayev.
    — The Economist, 26 Apr. 2018
  • And maybe that’s the power, too, of the show’s gleeful, jagged, imperfect forays into video.
    — Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker, 3 Oct. 2022
  • By now, my colleagues have grown accustomed to my gleeful ruination of the workplace.
    — Ariel Dumas, New Yorker, 14 Nov. 2025
  • The swearing and the gleeful overt talk of sexuality wasn’t just part of the bargain of being around him.
    — Dahlia Lithwick, Slate Magazine, 13 Dec. 2017
  • Even his nasty asides about Nancy Pelosi and Biden and fake news sounded less gleeful than usual.
    — Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 3 Nov. 2020
  • Camille smirks into her wine, feigning terror but secretly gleeful at the display.
    — Literary Hub, 24 Feb. 2026
  • The gleeful, mischievous delight the Oompa Loompas take in the demise of those kids is so funny.
    — Emily Zemler, Rolling Stone, 11 July 2023
  • Fans think that Emma Watson might have someone new in her life and the pairing is making some of them gleeful.
    — Melissa Minton, Teen Vogue, 7 Mar. 2018
  • Stars like Nicole Scherzinger and Brooke Shields were seemingly gleeful when the duo showed up in a big screen.
    — Armando Tinoco, Deadline, 16 June 2024
  • Biles wrote alongside a gleeful February 2022 pic of the pair.
    — Diane J. Cho, PEOPLE, 22 Apr. 2026
  • What follows is a gleeful parade, perfect for viewers who always wanted to meet the high school star crush whose posters adorned their bedroom walls.
    — Michelle Kung, EW.com, 18 Aug. 2025
  • Through tears – and adorably delirious and gleeful laughter – Kennedy is awestruck, swaying back and forth to the beat of the song in disbelief.
    — Alli Rosenbloom, CNN, 31 Mar. 2024
  • After Shideler was cross-examined, the feeling in the park outside was briefly gleeful.
    — Rachel Monroe, New Yorker, 26 Mar. 2026
  • But the idea of handling such a gleeful provocateur with kid gloves seems to somehow miss the point of De Palma’s work.
    — Chris Vognar, Los Angeles Times, 3 Sep. 2024
  • Both Smith and Lawrence shared the news in gleeful Instagram posts Tuesday.
    — Jessica Wang, EW.com, 31 Jan. 2023
  • The gleeful visuals and sounds, however, are what really propel the movie along.
    — David Sims, The Atlantic, 9 Feb. 2026

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