How to Use obligate in a Sentence

obligate

1 of 2 verb
  • The contract obligates the firm to complete the work in six weeks.
  • Opt for a gift that the host won’t feel obligated to serve.
    — Abigail Wilt, Southern Living, 22 Nov. 2025
  • Being a buy-and-hold investor doesn’t obligate you to use a death grip.
    — Jason Zweig, WSJ, 8 July 2022
  • And you’re obligated at a certain point to wonder if things might be last things.
    — Jane Ciabattari september 25, Literary Hub, 25 Sep. 2025
  • Given the break in the friendship, which was not our choice, are we obligated to send gifts?
    — Judith Martin, Mercury News, 15 Aug. 2025
  • You are not obligated to go broke paying for your friends’ overindulgence.
    — Abigail Van Buren, oregonlive, 8 July 2023
  • So they're getting paid for work that they're already obligated to do.
    — Jt Moodee Lockman, CBS News, 13 Apr. 2026
  • You are not obligated to buy just because the landlord offered it to you.
    — Gary Singer, Sun Sentinel, 19 Feb. 2026
  • More often than not, people feel obligated to dress up when wearing a cape.
    — Morgan Evans, InStyle, 15 Jan. 2026
  • No one is obligated to agree with Kristol about the war in Ukraine.
    — Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review, 15 Mar. 2023
  • That doesn't mean that if someone invites you over, you are now obligated to invite them.
    — Claire Hoppe Norgaard, Better Homes & Gardens, 11 Sep. 2025
  • When does the state of knowledge obligate us to change contact sports further—or alter our views of them?
    — Ingfei Chen, The New Yorker, 11 Feb. 2023
  • The city is legally obligated to make the payment.
    — Nell Salzman, Chicago Tribune, 20 Aug. 2025
  • They are obligated to pay Melvin next season.
    — Andrew Baggarly, New York Times, 27 Aug. 2025
  • No one is obligated to make these loans, however!
    — Brett Owens, Forbes.com, 21 Aug. 2025
  • They are not obligated to bring him back, however.
    — Andrew Baggarly, New York Times, 27 Aug. 2025
  • Still, that doesn't mean SpaceX isn't obligated to figure out what went wrong.
    — Eric Lagatta, USA Today, 20 Aug. 2025
  • You are not obligated to become friends with the woman, just because your genders match up.
    — Amy Dickinson, Detroit Free Press, 17 June 2023
  • Reunion shows aren’t obligated to be good; plenty of bands have made that obvious by now.
    — Pitchfork, 20 Dec. 2023
  • Nonetheless, we are obligated to try to understand, and books are the best place to start.
    — Boris Kachka, Los Angeles Times, 21 Nov. 2023
  • Teams are not obligated to make selections in the Rule 5 draft.
    — Jon Vankin, MSNBC Newsweek, 4 Dec. 2025
  • The importer of record is legally obligated to write the check before a single product can be sold.
    — Sara Albrecht, Chicago Tribune, 9 Mar. 2026
  • If a passenger does choose to leave the plane, the airline is not obligated to let the passenger back on board.
    — Jessica Puckett, Condé Nast Traveler, 1 Dec. 2025
  • The city is legally obligated to find shelter for anyone needing it.
    — Anthony Izaguirre, BostonGlobe.com, 24 Aug. 2023
  • But that doesn’t mean that the news media is obligated to accept such assertions at face value.
    — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 7 Nov. 2023
  • You are not obligated to be everyone’s friend, nor are you obligated to make friends for those who seem lost.
    — Lauren Brown West-Rosenthal, Parents, 7 Jan. 2026
  • Civilian city staff often receive raises as well — but the city is not obligated to provide them.
    — Austin Sanders, Austin American Statesman, 1 Mar. 2026
  • Your bank is legally obligated to comply.
    — Angelica Leicht, CBS News, 26 May 2026
  • As a driver, Nichols was obligated to run errands and to get a job to help support her small household.
    — Barbara Spindel, The Christian Science Monitor, 11 Apr. 2024
  • The vast majority of the band has day jobs that keep them obligated to stay home a little bit, more than some of the other bands.
    — Chris Willman, Variety, 23 Apr. 2024

obligate

2 of 2 adjective
  • Not, rather, because there are forces that obligate such trends.
    — Scott Hocker, theweek, 8 Feb. 2024
  • That may not work well with the obligate planner but this is where the rest of us can shine.
    — Paul Cappiello, The Courier-Journal, 5 Aug. 2022
  • And because cats are obligate carnivores, meat is the name of the game.
    — Lizz Schumer, Good Housekeeping, 2 June 2020
  • There are five species of cowbird (genus Molothrus) and all of them are obligate brood parasites.
    — Nathan H. Lents, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 Apr. 2025
  • This life history trait is known as obligate brood parasitism.
    — Grrlscientist, Forbes.com, 12 Aug. 2025
  • As obligate carnivores, cats love any sort of animal products, but does this mean they are allowed to eat everything?
    — David Faris, Newsweek, 27 Feb. 2025
  • As obligate carnivores with ferocious teeth, big cats were both motivated and equipped to rip primates to shreds.
    — Rebecca Van Laer september 30, Literary Hub, 30 Sep. 2025
  • The charters obligate teams to enter all their cars in all 36 Cup races and two exhibitions each season.
    — Ken Belson, New York Times, 1 May 2024
  • Cats are obligate carnivores, depending on meat for their nutrition.
    — Jonathan Keane, Forbes, 8 Aug. 2022
  • Cats are obligate carnivores, so quality cat food should consist primarily of meat.
    — Lauren Corona, chicagotribune.com, 26 Feb. 2021
  • As obligate scavengers, condors use their powerful bills to tear into dead animals with tough skin, like sea lions, that smaller scavengers can’t.
    — Margaret Osborne, Smithsonian Magazine, 25 July 2022
  • Females of these species, which include some wasps, crustaceans and lizards, reproduce only through parthenogenesis and are called obligate parthenogens.
    — Mercedes Burns, CNN, 27 Dec. 2021
  • That's because cats are obligate carnivores that get all their nutrients from eating animal protein.
    — Gordon G. Chang, Newsweek, 12 Dec. 2024
  • Such a relationship between species is called obligate parasitism, because the parasites cannot survive on their own.
    — Viviane Callier, Quanta Magazine, 8 May 2023
  • Quiescence and obligate diapause have different advantages, and most insect species opt for one or the other.
    — Cody Cottier, Discover Magazine, 8 Mar. 2025
  • As obligate scavengers, vultures survive almost exclusively on what is already dead.
    — Meera Subramanian, The New Yorker, 31 Jan. 2024
  • Morels exhibit a lavish, almost obligate response to fire, flourishing most in the springtime after a fire has cleared an area and augmented the soil with carbon.
    — Heather Arndt Anderson, Sunset Magazine, 13 Feb. 2020
  • Also, these service failures do not obligate airlines to offer a full refund of the value of your ticket so long as the flight takes place according to the original booking.
    — Marisa Garcia, Forbes, 26 Nov. 2024
  • Indeed, the variety Dr Abe chose to work with, known as the Notojima strain, is, like the bdelloids, an obligate parthenogen.
    — The Economist, 23 Jan. 2021
  • It’s known that dogs aren’t obligate carnivores, despite popular belief, but their health still benefits from a diet rich in high-quality proteins from meat.
    — Amber Smith, Discover Magazine, 22 Oct. 2022
  • Biologists have observed, over long periods of time, that species that are obligate parthenogens frequently die out from disease, parasitism or changes in habitat.
    — Mercedes Burns, CNN, 27 Dec. 2021
  • The specimens represented a range of dietary ecologies, from strict carnivores to obligate herbivores, and a wide variety of skull shapes.
    — Paul Smaglik, Discover Magazine, 16 Apr. 2025
  • The most famous of the obligate brood parasites is the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), and these birds parasitize several species.
    — Nathan H. Lents, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 Apr. 2025
  • About 50 kinds of lizards reproduce exclusively by asexual means (obligate parthenogenesis), plus the one species of snake mentioned above.
    — Quanta Magazine, 18 June 2020
  • These deals last six months and obligate a creator to post a minimum of eight Instagram Reels per month, with at least one more post on Instagram than any other platforms.
    — Zach Vallese, CNBC, 26 Jan. 2025
  • But many animals that aren’t obligate scavengers, such as raccoons and rodents, scavenge when their usual food source is in short supply, often in winter, says DeBruyn.
    — Avery Hurt, Discover Magazine, 1 Aug. 2025
  • Supporting the bill does not obligate leaders to accept the commission’s final recommendations.
    — Tyrone E. Keys Jr., Baltimore Sun, 23 Feb. 2025
  • Dozens of treaties obligate countries around the world and are referenced every day in national and transnational courts, sometimes leading to real results for victims and perpetrators.
    — Arash Azizi, The Atlantic, 27 Nov. 2024
  • The Antarctic midge, the continent’s sole native insect, was found to be the only organism to undergo both quiescence and obligate diapause.
    — Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, Harpers Magazine, 18 June 2025
  • Benthic sharks, which can rest on the ocean floor, tend to have shorter, rounded pectoral fins, while pelagic sharks, which are obligate ram ventilators that must continuously swim to breathe, have longer, more streamlined fins.
    — Melissa Cristina Marquez, Forbes, 1 Nov. 2024

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