How to Use insurgent in a Sentence

insurgent

1 of 2 noun
  • Insurgents are trying to gain control of the country's transportation system.
  • Month by month, year by year, an insurgent group has been taking over.
    — Joshua Rothman, New Yorker, 12 June 2026
  • The insurgents shut down the local school, then shot a teacher.
    — John Hudson, Washington Post, 2 Aug. 2023
  • The act as insurgent against privilege, set to die in the rot of reason.
    — Literary Hub, 31 Mar. 2026
  • Many voters appear to be tired of the status quo and willing to take a chance on an insurgent.
    — Shaun Boyd, CBS News, 27 June 2026
  • Public fights between young insurgents and the old guard often play out in the media.
    — Jay Caspian Kang, The New Yorker, 13 June 2023
  • Running a home business seemed to isolate the former insurgents in my study.
    — Maria Paulina Arango, The Conversation, 26 Feb. 2020
  • In Borno the military will work harder to deal with the insurgents.
    — Bukola Adebayo, CNN, 15 Feb. 2020
  • The press aims to champion writing that is urgent and insurgent.
    — Brittany Allen, Literary Hub, 11 June 2026
  • Farage, the forever insurgent, has always been able to avoid the choices that come with power.
    — Sam Knight, New Yorker, 21 Sep. 2025
  • The best challenger brands think like cultural insurgents.
    — Erik Huberman, Rolling Stone, 10 Oct. 2025
  • The misery wrought by insurgents in largely ungoverned spaces will push people to flee.
    — Ulf Laessing, semafor.com, 30 Apr. 2026
  • The insurgents are preventing the desert city from being supplied with basic goods.
    — Nbc Universal, NBC News, 8 Sep. 2023
  • Paxton will counter that Texas runoffs often reward insurgents.
    — Gromer Jeffers Jr, Dallas Morning News, 4 Mar. 2026
  • The insurgents become known as the Osos (Bears).
    — Kurt Snibbe, Oc Register, 12 June 2026
  • Niger is a former French colony and has served as the main ally for Paris in the fight against insurgents in the region.
    — Claire Parker, Washington Post, 29 July 2023
  • An allegedly insurgent demand is, in a way, a description of the status quo.
    — Kelefa Sanneh, The New Yorker, 27 Mar. 2023
  • At one point, insurgents kidnapped Méndez Ruiz — then a college student — and held him for two months.
    — Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post, 1 Dec. 2023
  • Those figures do not include soldiers and insurgents killed in the conflict; their numbers are believed to be in the tens of thousands.
    — Lou Kesten, Bassem Mroue, Jon Gambrell, Anchorage Daily News, 24 Mar. 2023
  • But now the onetime insurgent sits atop a sprawling establishment.
    — Jesse Bedayn, Chicago Tribune, 16 June 2026
  • When the Marine stepped inside, one insurgent would shoot him while the other—who was hiding by the door—would drag him deep into the house.
    — Elliott Ackerman, Wired, 30 Oct. 2020
  • The film documents their rise from underground insurgents to a cult institution of post-rock.
    — Jazz Monroe, Pitchfork, 11 Jan. 2024
  • The 429 package, which allows an insurgent to be killed in an air strike, must meet the legal requirements.
    — Annie Jacobsen, Wired, 20 Jan. 2021
  • If Hubbard and the other insurgent on the ballot were to win, the dynamics of the body would change instantly.
    — Justin Worland, Time, 27 Aug. 2025
  • The insurgents from the hard right of the GOP are usually the aggressors.
    — Gromer Jeffers Jr., Dallas News, 17 Sep. 2023
  • This might enable a mission which, for example, a Viper is located covertly next to a safe house known to be used by insurgents.
    — David Hambling, Forbes.com, 3 Sep. 2025
  • Among the goals was to support the upcoming Iraqi elections by clearing the city of insurgents and extremists.
    — Alexandra Rockey Fleming, PEOPLE, 11 Nov. 2025
  • When Sahelian countries tried to talk to their insurgents, France fiercely opposed it.
    — Obi Anyadike, semafor.com, 23 Mar. 2026
  • The city was choked, its residents fleeing to escape the constant barrage of insurgent missiles and the long lines at bakeries running out of bread.
    — Mujib Mashal Jim Huylebroek, New York Times, 9 Nov. 2023
  • Yet the man who led the insurgent charge to end half a century of the Assad dynasty's Ba'athist rule also poses new risks.
    — Tom O'Connor, MSNBC Newsweek, 26 Aug. 2025

insurgent

2 of 2 adjective
  • The post hadn't stopped a single insurgent fighter in months.
    — George Stanley, jsonline.com, 30 Aug. 2021
  • Even at moments when insurgent clouds seemed to seize control of the sky, rain did not seem part of our future.
    — Martin Weil, Washington Post, 26 June 2022
  • Those insurgent movements aspired to change the vision of the party.
    — Reid J. Epstein, New York Times, 6 Jan. 2023
  • By early summer, the insurgent group controlled more than half of the districts in Afghanistan.
    — New York Times, 30 Dec. 2021
  • By this time, however, the lines were invisible to the insurgent mob.
    — Adele M. Stan, The New Republic, 10 Mar. 2021
  • While the insurgent virus never strikes everywhere at once, the holidays do.
    — Chris Wilson, Time, 12 Nov. 2021
  • By the afternoon, most of the city was under insurgent control, and most government forces had fled.
    — New York Times, 8 Aug. 2021
  • Afghan forces have managed to retake several districts, but nothing on the scale of their insurgent foes.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 29 June 2021
  • Once again, the mighty US military had been beaten by insurgent forces in a country far from home.
    — Christian Stadler, Forbes, 30 Sep. 2021
  • The insurgent group was met with little resistance from government troops.
    — The Washington Post, Arkansas Online, 23 Aug. 2021
  • The party might be able to keep some potential candidates out, but not an insurgent candidate.
    — Jason Williams, The Enquirer, 19 Feb. 2021
  • Whether that means escaping the forces that would control him or seizing his creative liberty in more insurgent ways is the question that lingers.
    — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 9 Sep. 2022
  • The guards have long maintained they were targeted by insurgent gunfire at the traffic circle where the shooting occurred.
    — Eric Tucker, Anchorage Daily News, 3 Jan. 2021
  • The weapon was used in Afghanistan against ‘high value targets’ – a term that usually refers to insurgent leadership and praised.
    — David Hambling, Forbes, 17 Mar. 2022
  • Bergdahl, traveled across front lines from Qatar to a meeting with insurgent commanders from all over Afghanistan to explain its terms.
    — Jessica Donati, WSJ, 24 Dec. 2021
  • The insurgent movement has yet to respond to Biden’s surprise announcement that the pullout would only start on that date.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 15 Apr. 2021
  • And yet here are women, writing books, forcing their perspectives into the light, and proving what potent, insurgent art can be made in the process.
    — Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 20 May 2021
  • The United States has a long history of covertly providing arms to insurgent groups around the world.
    — New York Times, 5 Mar. 2022
  • Its seizure by the Taliban marks the first time the city was captured by the insurgent group since their rise to power in the 1990s.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 10 Aug. 2021
  • Collins has emerged as a something like a de facto chieftain within the insurgent AMC investor group.
    — Abram Brown, Forbes, 13 June 2021
  • Afghanistan is now in the hands of an insurgent force, fervently committed to bringing about a truly Islamic state.
    — Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, 21 Feb. 2022
  • The City Hall veteran said the leaks could be a galvanizing force for insurgent candidates.
    — David Zahniser, Los Angeles Times, 23 Oct. 2022
  • Over the years, various insurgent groups and militias have used women to smuggle explosives and weapons, in order to elude the radar of security forces.
    — Brice Laine, CNN, 7 Apr. 2021
  • As Election Day neared, Bannon was again at the center of the action on the insurgent right, and plainly relishing his role.
    — Adele M. Stan, The New Republic, 10 Mar. 2021
  • But the sentiment Caruso is trying to convey — that the city is in dire straits, with a populace plagued by fear — is central to his insurgent campaign for mayor.
    — Los Angeles Times, 3 Apr. 2022
  • Rapace plays the impenetrable Caroline Eid, whose young daughter is stolen from her by insurgent forces at the start of the conflict.
    — Sasha Urban, Variety, 18 Mar. 2022
  • After a long siege, insurgent forces seized Kunduz, Afghanistan’s sixth biggest city, about 200 miles north of Kabul.
    — Washington Post, 9 Aug. 2021
  • French forces thwarted an insurgent takeover of the nation in 2013, but the militants regrouped and spread across West Africa.
    — Washington Post, 30 Mar. 2021
  • In response, the political arm of the insurgent group that runs Idlib has closed some markets, forced restaurants to serve outdoor meals only, and delayed the opening of schools by a week.
    — Bassem Mroue, ajc, 22 Sep. 2021
  • Cantor aligned himself with the insurgent members of the Party, frequently at the expense of his boss, John Boehner.
    — Jonathan Blitzer, The New Yorker, 19 Dec. 2022

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

Last Updated: