How to Use lamentable in a Sentence

lamentable

adjective
  • The search for Covid’s origin seems to have stalled, which is lamentable.
    — Scott Gottlieb, WSJ, 5 Oct. 2022
  • In some ways, the new show is about the inexorable pull of time, the lamentable fact of aging.
    — Chris Wiley, The New Yorker, 20 Feb. 2024
  • Yet even those lamentable losses proved far less costly than any large global war.
    — Jeffrey A. Engel, Twin Cities, 6 June 2019
  • Shaw has followed the Phillies for much of their long, often-lamentable past.
    — Brian MacQuarrie, BostonGlobe.com, 1 Nov. 2022
  • His mouth is at a lamentable angle, drawn down on one side in an expression of sinister glee.
    — Josephine Livingstone, New Republic, 26 Oct. 2017
  • If, as seems clear, some migrants have left their home countries as a result of climate change, that is indeed lamentable.
    — Sean-Michael Pigeon, National Review, 20 July 2021
  • The effort by some to erase their work in 'The Woman King' is lamentable.
    — Richard Galant, CNN, 25 Sep. 2022
  • Perhaps such lamentable figures were low-hanging fruit, but Randi plucked them with aplomb.
    — Peter Tonguette, Washington Examiner, 29 Oct. 2020
  • That seems a little hasty, given workers’ lamentable fortunes in recent decades.
    — The Economist, 30 June 2018
  • His sense of duty yields an effortful and sanctimonious movie that, at the same time, takes its place in a lamentable recent trend.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 7 Jan. 2020
  • To be sure, there is something understandable, yet lamentable, in that notion.
    — Michael Serazio, Fortune, 25 Dec. 2023
  • There were so many elements of Rosalind's story, which were more lamentable than some of the other women.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 12 July 2021
  • That these places now exist for children in the nation’s capital is both commendable and lamentable.
    — Theresa Vargas, Washington Post, 24 Aug. 2019
  • Newcastle’s record against the present top 11 is lamentable, with only four league wins from 17 matches.
    — Chris Waugh, New York Times, 13 Mar. 2026
  • Lives, livelihoods, homes, and cabins will be lost — the lamentable collateral damage of our green future.
    — Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 15 Sep. 2020
  • The commission found lamentable failures but put to rest the partisan claims of deception.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 24 Oct. 2021
  • The Lakers are steaming toward a new future, with little tying them to the lamentable recent past.
    — Greg Beacham, The Seattle Times, 3 July 2018
  • To avoid such a lamentable fate, here are some easy-to-follow guidelines from the YMCA.
    — cleveland, 18 July 2022
  • Not all of these ideas were palatable — the conference’s foray into ice hockey has been lamentable — but most have been wildly successful.
    — John Shipley, Twin Cities, 5 June 2019
  • One of the things that makes the Lord of War aspect of this whole lamentable affair so extraordinary is the movie’s ending.
    — Joshua Hawkins, BGR, 8 Dec. 2022
  • The coarsening of the debate is lamentable, but that’s not the same thing as saying coarse criticism is an incitement to violence.
    — Chris Stirewalt, The Hill, 28 Apr. 2026
  • So against the backdrop of real estate's lamentable history vis-à-vis Black people, low-ball appraisals are more of the same, deeply troubling pattern.
    — Gayle Fleming, CNN, 29 Aug. 2022
  • Ella, whose innocent, concerned face shows an interest in reading her father’s moods, has picked up that a new horizon isn’t entirely lamentable.
    — Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times, 1 May 2026
  • That lamentable inequity has been eliminated, but there is still another troubling aspect to this part of the bill, which Bernstein pointed out to me.
    — John Cassidy, The New Yorker, 26 Mar. 2020
  • This war, and all its lamentable loss, could end quickly if Hamas released the hostages, and stopped holding Gaza captive to its ideology of hatred and death.
    — Washington Post, 21 June 2024
  • Make no mistake, the failure to control the border, and the stress on local communities forced to cope with a disorderly influx of people, is lamentable and needs to be fixed.
    — Bloomberg Opinion, Twin Cities, 10 Oct. 2024
  • French viewers seemed to be less bothered by this lamentable first than by the fact that Asselineau seemed to have swallowed an anthology of Chinese proverbs.
    — Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Hive, 19 Apr. 2017
  • Because our record as a country is lamentable, with just over half of our citizens voting in presidential elections since the 1960s.
    — Steven P. Dinkin, San Diego Union-Tribune, 27 Sep. 2020
  • Some buyers will balk at the Kia’s eccentric styling but not the Mazda, which (despite its lamentable wheel-arch cladding) is one of the most appealing vehicles out there.
    — Tribune News Service, cleveland, 19 Sep. 2020
  • The result was a concert that delighted and disappointed, soared and sputtered, although — happily — the heady highs outweighed the lamentable lows.
    — George Varga, San Diego Union-Tribune, 20 Sep. 2025

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