How to Use inanimate in a Sentence

inanimate

adjective
  • But there are inanimate pets in the cemetery.
    — Jennie Key, Cincinnati Enquirer, 31 Mar. 2026
  • But on the bright-ish side, an inanimate object can never leave them (that still feels dark).
    — Lester Fabian Brathwaite, EW.com, 18 Feb. 2022
  • Sometimes, inanimate objects can be there for us in a way that people can’t.
    — Lindsey Lanquist, SELF, 18 Dec. 2017
  • And if there aren’t enough animals in our lives, inanimate objects have been brought to life.
    — Peter Hartlaub, SFChronicle.com, 7 June 2020
  • Yes, true, my device may be inanimate in the narrow technical sense of the term.
    — Joe Queenan, WSJ, 4 Mar. 2021
  • The fact that the virus can be viable on inanimate objects such as bedsheets also adds to concerns.
    — Naomi Thomas and Neeraj G. Patel, CNN, 9 Aug. 2022
  • That way, no animals or inanimate objects will be harmed in the making of your special treats.
    — Cathryne Keller, SELF, 7 Dec. 2022
  • As the minutes pressed on, the gentle hum of the computer sounded dull and inanimate.
    — Aaron Peter, Wired, 15 Nov. 2020
  • And sometimes, at least on Earth, living things chisel inanimate things.
    — Charlie Wood, Popular Science, 8 Mar. 2021
  • There were no strict boundaries between space and time, the forces of nature or the animate and inanimate worlds.
    — James L. Fitzsimmons, The Conversation, 3 Oct. 2024
  • The American flag is not a mere inanimate banner.
    — Josh Hammer, MSNBC Newsweek, 27 Aug. 2025
  • Even on inanimate objects, oral can be one of the most rewarding and intimate parts of getting it on.
    — Sophie Saint Thomas, refinery29.com, 20 June 2019
  • Or perhaps there is some inanimate object in the bushes that approximates the shape of a dog.
    — Lance Eliot, Forbes, 24 May 2021
  • Jean Paul Gaultier’s first designs were made on an inanimate teddy bear.
    — Laird Borrelli-Persson, Vogue, 24 Jan. 2024
  • Anna describe her first kiss as alienlike and tells Josie there’s no shame in making out with inanimate objects.
    — Alejandra Gularte, Vulture, 14 Dec. 2021
  • The lyre was infused with magic, powerful enough to charm people and even inanimate objects like trees, streams, and rocks.
    — Ineye Komonibo, refinery29.com, 3 Sep. 2020
  • Evident before us and present in all matter—animate and inanimate—is the atom.
    — Pravir Malik, Forbes, 1 Oct. 2024
  • However, this trend of bringing inanimate objects as dates is becoming a motif for the young star.
    — Sarah Spellings, The Cut, 7 May 2018
  • The snowy skin, meanwhile, is an anomaly in the boundary between the body of a living man and his inanimate surroundings.
    — Jeremy England, WSJ, 24 Sep. 2020
  • The fabric maven muses about how inanimate things receive memories.
    — Robert Sullivan, Vogue, 16 Feb. 2026
  • The former is the mode of being that categorizes all inanimate and non-conscious objects.
    — Theodore McDarrah, Forbes, 27 Feb. 2024
  • The uptown native walks around the five boroughs gently roasting strangers and, more often than not, inanimate objects.
    — Jeff Ihaza, Rolling Stone, 20 Aug. 2022
  • Many people backed his daughter because there was a dog outside in a way, while others acknowledge how creepy that inanimate face could be to a child.
    — Alyce Collins, MSNBC Newsweek, 15 Sep. 2025
  • Submit an image of a man — or an inanimate object — and it will be transformed to include breasts and female genitalia.
    — Washington Post, 20 Oct. 2020
  • The way that the sound bounces off of the other objects in the room can tell us whether the person is standing next to a living thing versus an inanimate object.
    — Gary Stix, Scientific American, 27 Oct. 2021
  • For some of us (maybe mostly chemists), this perspective neatly unifies the animate and inanimate worlds.
    — Roy A. Black, The New York Review of Books, 8 Apr. 2021
  • The tardigrades will arrive on the station in a frozen inanimate state, then be thawed out, revived and grown in a special bioculture system.
    — Ashley Strickland, CNN, 26 May 2021
  • According to your book, physics describes the actions or tendencies of every living thing—and inanimate ones as well.
    — John Stanmeyer, National Geographic, 30 May 2016
  • Frasier, like Loveless, noticed how Cochran’s work was able to bring out the soul of inanimate objects and people alike.
    — John Canale, cleveland, 23 May 2022
  • As in the first Toy Story, inanimate objects are often the most impressive.
    — Joyce Slaton, WIRED, 22 Nov. 1999

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