How to Use have-not in a Sentence

have-not

noun
  • Make a list of haves and have-nots.
    Kat McGowan, NPR, 28 Mar. 2026
  • This is not a problem of haves versus have-nots.
    Eric Snoey, Mercury News, 21 Oct. 2025
  • The gap between the have and have-nots had widened into a canyon.
    John Blake, CNN Money, 18 Jan. 2026
  • Often, football is described as a game of haves and have-nots.
    Sebastian Stafford-Bloor, New York Times, 11 June 2026
  • What seems like class warfare between haves and have-nots isn’t that simple.
    Julie Hinds, Detroit Free Press, 6 Apr. 2023
  • At that point, there will be more have-nots than haves in major college football.
    Jon Wilner | , oregonlive, 14 Aug. 2023
  • Still, most of the haves and have-nots probably won’t change much in its waning weeks.
    Ian Livingston, Anchorage Daily News, 9 Mar. 2023
  • Will there be haves, who can afford to pay for a robotaxi and have-nots who are left with the bus?
    Elizabeth Weise, USA Today, 18 May 2025
  • To some extent, millennial wealth is a story of haves and have-nots.
    Daniel De Visé, USA TODAY, 4 Mar. 2025
  • On the investment side, strong gains for housing and stocks are widening the have/have-not divide.
    Russ Wiles, USA TODAY, 8 Oct. 2024
  • The chasm between the haves and have-nots is about to become more profound than any time in the history of the sport.
    Bryce Miller, San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 Dec. 2023
  • That’s for the college game, where the head coach is the star and the difference between the haves and have-nots is massive.
    Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 12 Jan. 2026
  • And this situation is widening the divide between the haves and have-nots.
    Matt Egan, CNN, 2 Mar. 2024
  • Today, this sense of haves versus have-nots is starting to create a caste system that can make everyone feel bad.
    Todd Martens, Los Angeles Times, 20 Apr. 2023
  • And even billionaires are responding to the growing wealth divide between the haves and have-nots.
    Emma Burleigh, Fortune, 9 Jan. 2026
  • The nation of grinding hardship has increasingly become one of haves and have-nots.
    Jeanna Smialek Chris Buckley Adriana Loureiro Fernandez Christine Hauser, New York Times, 22 Mar. 2023
  • Meanwhile, big companies continue to see a widening split between the haves and have-nots.
    Andrea Riquier, USA Today, 18 Nov. 2025
  • Central Florida is slowly becoming the land of the haves and have-nots.
    Letters To The Editor, The Orlando Sentinel, 10 Aug. 2025
  • But in this clash of haves and have-nots, are Josh and Lindsay really among the privileged?
    Daniel Fienberg, HollywoodReporter, 16 Apr. 2026
  • That left a landscape of haves and have-nots, with nearly 200 veteran free agents still unsigned.
    Dan Schlossberg, Forbes, 12 Dec. 2024
  • Ultimately, the perennial haves and have-nots will always be a factor too.
    Tim Ellis, Forbes, 23 Oct. 2024
  • That gap in the spending patterns of the haves and have-nots is just one indication of how inequality is on the rise.
    Iese Business School, Forbes, 25 Feb. 2025
  • Did in-class computing solve the divide between technology haves and have-nots?
    Jessica A. Stansbury, Baltimore Sun, 1 Mar. 2024
  • Retirement is yet another dividing line between the haves and have-nots.
    Boston Herald Editorial Staff, Boston Herald, 1 May 2026
  • The toll of the pandemic and climate change keep exposing, in ways big and small, the grim inequities between the world’s haves and have-nots.
    Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 8 Sep. 2023
  • Speaking of the haves and have-nots, NBC has set up a caste system where not all sports are created equal.
    John Cherwa, Los Angeles Times, 25 July 2024
  • The worries are that the planet will be divided into the AGI haves and have-nots.
    Lance Eliot, Forbes.com, 14 Aug. 2025
  • Investment gains widen the have/have-not divide This has been a year of rising personal wealth, with no signs of it abating.
    Russ Wiles, The Arizona Republic, 6 Oct. 2024
  • This piece requires a deeper explanation, one that reaches deep into the sport’s history of haves and have-nots.
    Jon Wilner, The Mercury News, 22 Jan. 2025
  • America’s economy is increasingly one of haves and have-nots.
    Tristan Bove, Fortune, 4 Feb. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'have-not.' 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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