How to Use opposable in a Sentence

opposable

adjective
  • Humans have an opposable thumb.
  • Pictures in some form have been around almost as long as opposable thumbs.
    — John Pearley Huffman, Car and Driver, 6 Jan. 2020
  • The ability to occlude the thumb is the key to the magic trick, so the thumb must be opposable.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 4 Apr. 2023
  • Its wide eyes and opposable thumbs help the pygmy slow loris move around the forest in the night, searching for tasty insects.
    — USA TODAY, 30 Jan. 2024
  • And then there are those paws which, despite a lack of opposable thumbs, are remarkably agile.
    — Shoshi Parks, Popular Science, 10 June 2026
  • Opossums have opposable big toes on the hind foot, so the tracks will look like little hands with widely-spread fingers.
    — Arricca Elin Sansone, Southern Living, 1 July 2026
  • Opossums have opposable big toes on the hind foot, so the tracks will look like little hands with widely-spread fingers.
    — Arricca Elin Sansone, Southern Living, 6 Aug. 2025
  • All pets really need is your care and the occasional use of your opposable thumbs.
    — Alessandra Codinha, Vogue, 6 May 2021
  • The indri is a lemur, a primate with opposable thumbs; a short tail; and round, tufted, teddy-bear-like ears.
    — Sara Harrison, Wired, 21 Dec. 2021
  • But what makes Paddles truly special are her opposable thumbs.
    — Sarah Spellings, The Cut, 26 Oct. 2017
  • He was born without opposable thumbs, or even hands, and has trouble climbing ladders as a result.
    — Wes Siler, Outside Online, 20 Apr. 2016
  • Raccoons have five digits on their paws but actually lack opposable thumbs.
    — René A. Guzman, ExpressNews.com, 25 Aug. 2020
  • This could be the app version of convergent evolution, which led humans and koalas to each have opposable thumbs.
    — Shira Ovide, Washington Post, 16 Apr. 2024
  • It’s been said that stories were crucial to our development as people— more so than opposable thumbs.
    — Rodger Dean Duncan, Forbes, 21 Feb. 2023
  • People with opposable thumbs (and an appreciation of the things hands make).
    — Mary Divine, Twin Cities, 19 July 2025
  • More to the point, though, climbing bamboo trees is difficult without an opposable digit.
    — National Geographic, 21 Oct. 2019
  • This opposable-toed ape co-existed with the same hominin species as one of our most famous ancestors–Lucy.
    — Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 26 Nov. 2025
  • Unless her dog suddenly sprouted legs and opposable thumbs, then this entire sequence is fishier than, well, sushi.
    — Christopher Rosa, Glamour, 30 May 2018
  • My thumbs, made opposable by evolution so that humans could grab things and not just tap on a screen to acquire them, weren’t working the way they were designed to.
    — Lee Siegel, New York Times, 22 Apr. 2017
  • Obviously the Angels will be a lot less opposable without Trout’s thumb.
    — Mark Whicker, Orange County Register, 3 June 2017
  • One of the reasons humans are such a dominant species is not only our brains, nor just our opposable thumbs, but the incredible range of motion of our arms.
    — Ajc Homepage, ajc, 29 Apr. 2017
  • For instance, researchers believe these sequences are behind the development of the uterus and also of our opposable thumbs.
    — Daniel Bastardo Blanco, Discover Magazine, 13 Aug. 2019
  • Our language is uninterested in the verdicts of the old man’s thumbs (opposable, yet—for the moment, at least—unopposed).
    — Salman Rushdie, The New Yorker, 16 Nov. 2020
  • The thumb is manually opposable, giving the user better control over grip force and object handling.
    — Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 10 Aug. 2025
  • With their opposable toes and flat feet, early human ancestors have often been portrayed as weird walkers, swaying from side to side or rolling off the outside edges of their feet.
    — Ann Gibbons, Science | AAAS, 2 Apr. 2018
  • Spring in our step Primate feet evolved mostly to grasp while climbing, which is why chimpanzees have more flexible feet than humans and why their big toes are opposable, like our thumbs.
    — Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 15 Aug. 2018
  • There was also a picnic, educational meetings and various games - including tug of war open to anyone with opposable thumbs.
    — Sydney Page, Anchorage Daily News, 19 July 2023
  • Being one inch tall also alters the difficulty of almost any in-game challenge (compounded if characters lack opposable thumbs).
    — Pearse Anderson, Wired, 9 Sep. 2021
  • Thumb opposition isn’t unique to humans, and in fact an opposable thumb facilitates the enhanced grasping abilities of many primates.
    — Sabrina Sholts, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 Mar. 2024
  • Evolution has adapted the digits of mammals for an enormous range of uses, from our opposable thumbs to the spindly digits that support bat wings to the robust bones that support the hoofs of horses.
    — John Timmer, ArsTechnica, 17 Sep. 2025

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