How to Use gouge in a Sentence

gouge

1 of 2 noun
  • The accident left a big gouge in the side of the car.
  • But hey, whiskey nerds are gonna whiskey nerd and whiskey sellers are gonna gouge.
    — Jonah Flicker, Robb Report, 28 Sep. 2025
  • Deep scratches and gouges take more work to disguise.
    — Brandee Gruener, Southern Living, 12 Sep. 2025
  • The items have to be in mint condition, no stains, no gouges.
    — Joyce Smith, kansascity, 23 Aug. 2017
  • Scratches and burns can be sanded out; deep gouges can be filled.
    — Joseph Truini, Popular Mechanics, 2 May 2017
  • These scores and gouges can reveal a lot about ancient ecosystems, though.
    — Popular Science, 29 May 2020
  • The damage was a long gouge in the Mercedes bumper that stripped the paint off.
    — Gary Richards, The Mercury News, 15 June 2017
  • Oh, and watch out for a third arm that often bursts out of their chests and gouges out victims' eyes.
    — Chris Ball, cleveland.com, 14 Feb. 2018
  • The rest of that branch looks fine with beautiful, healthy looking leaves above the gouge.
    — oregonlive, 3 May 2020
  • Scalpels, wood-carving gouges, and kitchen knives are perfect for adding details.
    — Popular Mechanics, 31 Aug. 2018
  • Visitors to the museum will be able to inspect the gouge up close.
    — Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 Dec. 2022
  • Fighters cannot bite, strike the back of their opponent’s head or spine, grab the cage, or gouge eyeballs.
    — Bhumika Tharoor, The Atlantic, 9 June 2026
  • Others had gouge marks consistent with being struck with a cable or a chain.
    — David Matthews, New York Daily News, 12 Aug. 2025
  • No, Ser Gregor doesn’t drop him or perform his famous eye gouge.
    — James Hibberd, EW.com, 13 Aug. 2019
  • Create a scratchy texture by roughly scraping a gouge across pumpkin flesh.
    — Sarah Martens, Better Homes & Gardens, 16 Oct. 2022
  • Chops, gouges, wounds it like the shadow grooves on the sidewalks—the sun is setting earlier.
    — Literary Hub, 16 Mar. 2026
  • The birds had no feathers below their necks and chest areas, and they were covered in gouges on their breasts, legs, and heads.
    — Travis Andersen, BostonGlobe.com, 29 May 2018
  • Guests can watch aproned masters at work— chisels and gouges in hand—shaping, grooving, and whittling.
    — Ashlea Halpern, Condé Nast Traveler, 12 Aug. 2025
  • Gouges from bullets and shells mar the elegant porticoes and grand wooden front doors.
    — Patrick J. McDonnell, latimes.com, 15 May 2017
  • If a gouge or chip in a surface goes through the veneer into the substrate below it, don't even try sanding it out.
    — Kevin Dupzyk, Popular Mechanics, 3 Mar. 2021
  • Wood filler is the best choice for repairing large, deep gouges, but usually requires staining.
    — Brandee Gruener, Southern Living, 12 Sep. 2025
  • These make faint etchings on the underside of skis; a groove in a vinyl album is a gouge by comparison.
    — Author: David Segal, Anchorage Daily News, 14 Feb. 2018
  • But sooner or later, your beautiful floor is going to get ugly scratches and gouges.
    — Brandee Gruener, Southern Living, 12 Sep. 2025
  • But that will be a heavy lift indeed with a health care system geared above all to price-gouge sick people out of as much money as possible.
    — Ryan Cooper, TheWeek, 3 Mar. 2020
  • Across the Midwest, there are several aquifer systems created by glaciers that carved deep gouges in the earth.
    — Carrie Blackmore Smith, Cincinnati.com, 27 Feb. 2018
  • Could the growling creature be responsible for the gouges by Zampanò’s dead body?
    — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 12 June 2026
  • Today, the houses's fifteen-feet-high oak doors, shaded by Callery pear trees on the north side of the street, bear gouges from that crow bar.
    — Ben Widdicombe, Town & Country, 27 May 2020
  • As a result of this opaque dynamic that exists nowhere else in the economy, hospitals have a blank check to price gouge.
    — Cynthia A. Fisher, Fortune, 12 Apr. 2023
  • Japanese keyhole saws, gouges, a cheese-grater-like rasp called a microplane and, for the final steps, lots and lots of sandpaper.
    — Bob Shallit, sacbee, 16 June 2018
  • Use a gouge or rotary tool ($50, The Home Depot) to etch large sections.
    — Sarah Martens, Better Homes & Gardens, 16 Oct. 2022

gouge

2 of 2 verb
  • The lamp fell and gouged the table.
  • A bomb had gouged a large crater in the street.
  • They feel that they are being gouged by the oil companies.
  • Its thick shell takes sifakas a half-hour to gouge open with their teeth.
    — Bridget Alex, Discover Magazine, 6 Feb. 2020
  • The ship spun and fell against the rocks, which gouged and ripped apart the hull.
    — David Reamer | Alaska History, Anchorage Daily News, 16 Apr. 2023
  • To the left of the falls, gouged halfway up the cliff face, was a cave.
    — Peter Heller, Condé Nast Traveler, 2 Jan. 2024
  • Then thunder crashes and a hand with an open wound gets gouged open.
    — Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 1 Apr. 2026
  • Last week was bomb and gouge, and this week is very position golf.
    — Steve Dimeglio, USA TODAY, 23 May 2018
  • Over the years, he had been gouged, slashed, stripped, beaten, drugged, dumped in the snow and shot at.
    — Edmund H. Mahony, courant.com, 1 Aug. 2019
  • Peafowl are the size of turkeys, with sharp beaks, massive talons and spurs that could gouge you.
    — Jaclyn Cosgrove, Los Angeles Times, 18 June 2021
  • With each hole, a new larger hole was gouged further down the tunnel.
    — John D'anna, azcentral, 18 July 2019
  • As the earth settles, fissures are gouging cracks in the roads.
    — AZCentral.com, 5 Dec. 2019
  • These boards are screwed and glued together, and are often cut and gouged.
    — Thomas Hine, Philly.com, 31 May 2018
  • By pointing the grain in the same direction, the plane won't gouge the wood.
    — Popular Mechanics Editors, Popular Mechanics, 1 May 2021
  • As more people work from home, there's a rise in price-gouging on tech gadgets.
    — Usa Today Network-Wisconsin, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 1 Apr. 2020
  • One latched onto my face and got his thumb in my right eye, attempting to gouge it out.
    — Paul Leblanc, CNN, 29 Dec. 2021
  • The likeness of each cat looked as if it had been attacked with a knife, their eyes and mouths gouged out.
    — Sean Elder, Town & Country, 22 Oct. 2018
  • The higher prices paid by consumers in recent months have been met with charges of gouging.
    — George Anderson, Forbes, 21 Feb. 2023
  • The greedy people will get theirs when people get fed up with being gouged at every turn.
    — Ticked Off, The Orlando Sentinel, 15 Aug. 2025
  • Nobody likes being price gouged, whether at the gas pump, ticket purchase, or a rideshare.
    — Encyclopedia Britannica, 2 Apr. 2026
  • One boat would lead as a battering ram; the second would gouge out a larger channel in its wake.
    — Matthew Ormseth, courant.com, 19 Jan. 2018
  • Resorts gouge their customers at the window, and their customers find a workaround.
    — Graham Averill, Outside, 16 Jan. 2026
  • When the Roadrunners were gouged for 75 yards in three plays on the opening drive?
    — Nick Talbot, ExpressNews.com, 14 Sep. 2019
  • The company started gouging her $75 per day to store the car.
    — Danny Westneat, The Seattle Times, 17 Oct. 2018
  • Wood can gouge or splinter easily under too much pressure.
    — Sacbee.com, 9 Apr. 2026
  • The most famous scene involved a torturer using a spoon to gouge out a victim's eye.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 14 Oct. 2020
  • After all, no one can say Stubban was gouged with this 1-cent medical bill.
    — David Lazarus, latimes.com, 15 June 2018
  • The gas stations agreed not to gouge prices in the future, according to Paxton.
    — Alejandra Matos, Houston Chronicle, 5 July 2018
  • The session culminated in two new price-gouging laws.
    — Richard Ramos, CBS News, 3 Apr. 2026
  • Black continued to gouge at Powell's eyes once on the ground, Powell wrote.
    — Teresa Moss, Arkansas Online, 9 June 2022

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