How to Use incise in a Sentence

incise

verb
  • The design is incised into the clay.
  • The clay is incised to create a design.
  • It was incised on eleven tablets, back and front, with roughly three hundred lines on each tablet.
    — Joan Acocella, The New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2019
  • They were used in reliefs, as cameos or incised below the surface as intaglios used for sealing.
    — Anthony Demarco, Forbes, 6 Sep. 2024
  • There is a plication procedure and there are procedures to incise the plaque out.
    — Jeff Forward, Chron, 23 Nov. 2020
  • Carved from wood as a durable, 3-foot-tall, totem-like column, it was then wrapped in linen, covered with smooth plaster and incised and painted.
    — Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, 1 Mar. 2024
  • Somewhat lazy streams may morph into straight, narrow channels that incise down, destabilizing banks.
    — Alka Tripathy-Lang, Ars Technica, 11 Jan. 2024
  • The Colorado River, whose wild energy incised the canyon over millions of years, is in crisis.
    — Raymond Zhong, New York Times, 6 June 2023
  • Ears flat, teeth bared and flanks incised with riblike arcs, the animal projects a tense ferocity far exceeding its size.
    — Roberta Smith, Martha Schwendener, Jason Farago and Will Heinrich, New York Times, 7 Sep. 2017
  • Of all the successes among heritage brands, few have exceeded that of the traditional boat shoe with white soles incised in a pattern of chevron grooves.
    — New York Times, 5 Feb. 2020
  • Patterns on vessels were often incised into the mold itself, as this technique allowed for fine details to be transferred from mold to object.
    — Teagan Wolter, Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 Mar. 2026
  • There, the child incised into the skirt on the right turns out to be standing on one of their mom’s feet, while the child incised on the left is actively stepping up on her other foot.
    — Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, 1 Mar. 2024
  • Initial analysis suggested the tattoos were incised with a blade and then impregnated with black pigment.
    — Cnn.com Wire Service, The Mercury News, 9 Apr. 2024
  • Twenty-eight days ago in Houston, Severino incised the Astros.
    — Chandler Rome, Houston Chronicle, 30 May 2018
  • The stick and stone represent yes or no, while the leaf cards, which are specially incised with certain meanings, offer further clarification.
    — Michelle Aroney and David Zeitlyn, Smithsonian Magazine, 2 Jan. 2025
  • Expertly mimicking a child’s earnest handiwork, the picture being incised into human flesh shows two stick-figure girls holding hands.
    — Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, 31 Jan. 2024
  • And thousands of noncorroding Frisbee-size discs, incised with images of human horror, will be buried all around for any inquisitive diggers to find.
    — Tim Heffernan, Popular Mechanics, 10 May 2012
  • Little climbed into a trench and bent over a vertical stone that was incised with a web of typically Orcadian geometric patterns.
    — Alex Ross, New Yorker, 24 Nov. 2025
  • Among other astonishments here are numerous gorgeous plasters—penciled, incised and painted.
    — Lance Esplund, WSJ, 19 June 2018
  • According to testimony from a preliminary hearing held last year, the victim sustained 27 stab or incise wounds to both the front and back of her head, torso, arms and legs.
    — City News Service, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 June 2026
  • That approach begins with an incision in the inframammary fold, and the pectoralis muscle is then identified and incised, explains Smith.
    — Erin Nicole Celletti, Allure, 10 Apr. 2018
  • Large, spiral conch shells, probably once home to ancient sea snails and now notched by hand at the apex to form a trumpet, are incised with images of warriors, hunters and the dead — as well as zoomorphic creatures that may well be crocodiles.
    — Christopher Knight, latimes.com, 18 Apr. 2018
  • The markings were deeply incised into dolomite rock in locations close to the burials in the Dinaledi Chamber and Hill Antechamber.
    — Kate Wong, Scientific American, 5 June 2023
  • The artist works predominantly in soft pastel and oil pastel, deeply layered, incised, etched, and otherwise manipulated into phantasmagoric visions.
    — Mayer Rus, Architectural Digest, 6 Sep. 2024
  • Indeed, Ehrlich mines her treasure trove to create jewels imbued with the presence of the past, molding, for example, bronze age Viking bracelets in wax, incising them with enigmatic marks and casting them in 18-karat gold or sterling silver.
    — Kyle Roderick, Forbes, 23 Sep. 2024

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

Last Updated: