How to Use jaywalk in a Sentence

jaywalk

verb
  • The police officer warned us not to jaywalk.
  • Banks wouldn’t lend, police used crimes such as jaywalking to arrest, schools failed to teach.
    — Anita Chabria, Los Angeles Times, 4 Apr. 2024
  • Don’t rubberneck or jaywalk; that’s how people die.
    — Joseph Trinidad, Longreads, 16 June 2026
  • Most members and employees opt to park on the side of the club instead of trying to jaywalk across the street.
    — Salvador Hernandez, Los Angeles Times, 16 Apr. 2024
  • Beachgoers who parked in neighborhoods jaywalked through a sea of cars across the highway to the sand.
    — Hannah Fry, Los Angeles Times, 13 Aug. 2024
  • The data show that men are ticketed for jaywalking 2 ½ times more than women.
    — Gene Balk / Fyi Guy, The Seattle Times, 20 July 2017
  • He also was ordered not to block traffic, not jaywalk but use a crosswalk, and if driving, stick to lanes of traffic.
    — oregonlive, 23 Sep. 2021
  • Motorists share the road with bicyclists; bikers stop at red lights; and pedestrians don’t jaywalk.
    — John Gallagher, Detroit Free Press, 13 June 2019
  • If walkers sometimes jaywalk to reach their destination, that’s a design flaw rather than a human flaw.
    — Laura Blasey, Los Angeles Times, 23 Sep. 2021
  • The combination of these failures—and Herzberg's decision to jaywalk in the first place—led to her death.
    — Timothy B. Lee, Ars Technica, 22 Mar. 2018
  • Many who died were males, were jaywalking or had alcohol in their systems on multilane roads in urban areas at night.
    — Detroit Free Press, 28 June 2018
  • Not anymore – and part of the reason for the change is who was overwhelmingly being cited for jaywalking.
    — Andrew Torgan, CNN, 4 Nov. 2024
  • Four signs in the median warned people not to jaywalk there, directing them to a crosswalk 380 feet away.
    — Lauren Smiley, Wired, 8 Mar. 2022
  • The update was meant to decrease jaywalking and increase the use of crosswalks among pedestrians, police said.
    — Wren Smetana, AZCentral.com, 17 Jan. 2026
  • China's version factors in everything from jaywalking, to smoking on trains, to buying too many video games.
    — Ben Tracy, CBS News, 24 Apr. 2018
  • Late last year, a young black man was punched by a county police officer repeatedly during a jaywalking stop.
    — Jose A. Del Real, New York Times, 28 Mar. 2018
  • If crosswalks only come every quarter or half-mile, Hamann said, many people will opt to jaywalk through multilane roads.
    — Maia Pandey, NBC News, 29 June 2023
  • Pedestrians are caught jaywalking; bicyclists don’t stay in the bike lanes and motorists drive while distracted.
    — Erika I. Ritchie, Orange County Register, 1 May 2017
  • Some victims were drunk, drugged, wearing dark clothing at midnight, jaywalking or just oblivious to danger.
    — Bruce Selcraig, San Antonio Express-News, 19 June 2018
  • More crosswalks were also added, according to the New York Times, to help thwart jaywalking.
    — Benjamin Preston, Car and Driver, 12 Dec. 2017
  • The city of Daye, in China’s Hubei province, has long struggled to suppress the scourge of jaywalking.
    — David Scharfenberg, BostonGlobe.com, 11 May 2018
  • The man was found not to have been involved in the assault on a female, but was cited for obstructing official business and jaywalking.
    — cleveland, 9 Feb. 2020
  • In another, a man alleged that an officer twice squeezed his genitals during a frisk last year that followed a street stop for jaywalking.
    — Al Baker and Benjamin Mueller, New York Times, 14 Feb. 2018
  • The reasons to revoke jaywalking laws are similar, Volland said.
    — Emily Goodykoontz, Anchorage Daily News, 5 Aug. 2023
  • Before the barrier was erected, the convenience store had put up signs in multiple languages warning tourists not to jaywalk.
    — Koh Ewe, TIME, 28 May 2024
  • From this data, analyses can reveal where the public is most tempted to jaywalk or where human drivers tend to be least attentive to the rights of pedestrians.
    — Lance Eliot, Forbes, 4 Mar. 2021
  • This forces her to trek all the way to Garnet to cross to the other side of Soledad Mountain Road, or jaywalk illegally.
    — Steven Mihailovich, San Diego Union-Tribune, 23 Jan. 2024
  • Bartholomew added that August and September are popular months for seeing Sasquatch jaywalking across the street.
    — Fox News, 15 Aug. 2018
  • In October, 1991, he was stopped by the police for jaywalking in downtown Oakland.
    — Hua Hsu, The New Yorker, 23 Oct. 2023
  • Barney points out that Andy doesn’t wear a sidearm, that traffic and jaywalking are completely out of control, and that Mayberry doesn’t have tear gas or submachine guns.
    — Bulletin Board, Twin Cities, 19 Mar. 2017

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

Last Updated: