How to Use hovel in a Sentence

hovel

noun
  • The play opens in a one-room hovel in a rebel army camp in Liberia.
    — Theodore P. Mahne, NOLA.com, 23 Apr. 2018
  • Maybe the problem wasn't a scary series of tubes or a creepy guy with a webcam in a hovel.
    — Jordan Crucchiola, Wired News, 17 Apr. 2015
  • Inside, my hovel smelled musty as a summer cottage in the off-season.
    — Wes Enzinna, Harper's magazine, 19 Nov. 2019
  • The ceiling, in contrast to my first hovel, couldn’t be reached except by a tall ladder.
    — Literary Hub, 20 Feb. 2026
  • During the rainy season, their hovels turned into hovels on stilts.
    — Literary Hub, 5 Dec. 2025
  • Hovey said her mom had asked her to be patient and wait until they were settled in that hovel-like shelter.
    — Los Angeles Times, 14 Mar. 2022
  • But all the characters racing up and down the stairs of his uber-New York walk-up hovel are a howl.
    — Amy Nicholson, Twin Cities, 14 Dec. 2025
  • These big things are displayed in Moreau’s studio, which is more an immense gallery than office, hovel, or workspace.
    — Brian T. Allen, National Review, 10 Mar. 2022
  • Fanciness dripped off of every castle wall and humble underground hovel.
    — Angela Watercutter, WIRED, 26 Dec. 2022
  • The ghastliest hovels, like Ruby’s house, often yield the highest returns.
    — Jennifer Senior, New York Times, 21 Feb. 2016
  • This lush thriller swings back and forth through time and up and down the social ladder, from the hovels to the palaces of contemporary India.
    — Washington Post Editors and Reviewers, Washington Post, 26 May 2023
  • Well nuclear is back, because AI needs it, not because peasants risk freezing in their hovels.
    — Clem Chambers, Forbes, 10 Oct. 2024
  • Before their new house was built, Reyes and her husband, Leandro Membreño, rented a hovel made of clay and galvanized metal sheets.
    — Soudi Jiménez, Los Angeles Times, 17 June 2022
  • In what by American standards would be considered a hovel, Gong is raised by his aging grandparents, his mother having abandoned him as a small child.
    — Matthew Carey, Deadline, 29 Dec. 2025
  • The figure of an older woman working alone in a forest hovel inevitably brings some kind of sorcery to mind, but Hjorth’s earlier novels haven’t made too much of the suggestion.
    — Elaine Blair, Harpers Magazine, 24 Feb. 2026
  • Additionally, the nocturnal insects tended to return to consistent hovels to rest and relax during the day.
    — Katherine J. Wu, Smithsonian, 9 July 2018
  • Brendan Fraser rightfully earned praise for his compassionate turn as a morbidly obese man living out his last lonely days in a dim Idaho hovel.
    — Leah Greenblatt, EW.com, 5 Dec. 2022
  • At the core of the play is the relationship between Sawyer and Scratch (Evan Jonigkeit), the alluring devil who one strange day appears in her hovel.
    — Jordan Riefe, The Hollywood Reporter, 30 Aug. 2019
  • The motion picture world of today reminds me of Rio – opulent penthouses (big IP) on one side of the street, and hovels (independent movies) on the other.
    — Bill Mechanic, Deadline, 15 May 2025
  • An adventurous death trip that will magically drive them both from their hovel to the wild mountains and up to New York, from suffocating reality to absolute freedom.
    — Matthew Carey, Deadline, 20 Feb. 2025
  • The idea of using house size as a proxy for economic status may not be revolutionary—a palace is bigger than a hovel, after all—but the researchers found a new way to gauge the economy of ancient settlements from structural measurements.
    — Matthew Shaer, Smithsonian, 22 Feb. 2018
  • Producers and directors whose story lines call for gritty hovels, classic capes, bungalows, grand beachfront properties and every sort of residence in between have an incentive to make do with the housing stock in the five boroughs.
    — Joanne Kaufman, New York Times, 6 Sep. 2019
  • The movie, about three young women shacking up in a rancid hovel in the French provinces, premiered in Locarno and screened at the Oldenburg film festival in 2010.
    — Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 Sep. 2023
  • Abdul Hadi spent his days hiding in hovels in distant parts of Syria, turning his mind obsessively over the old days of revolution, over fleeting encounters and terrible choices.
    — Anand Gopal, New Yorker, 28 Feb. 2026
  • When Curtis moved to Little Rock in 1987, he was dismayed to see the condition of the house had deteriorated into a hovel for drug addicts and prostitutes.
    — Dwain Hebda, Arkansas Online, 16 Jan. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hovel.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: