How to Use paddy wagon in a Sentence

paddy wagon

noun
  • And then we would be thrown in the paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like sardines in a can.
    — CNN, 4 Apr. 2018
  • And then we would be thrown in the paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like sardines in a can.
    — Jeremy Gray | , al, 5 Apr. 2023
  • His police moved in, herding the children into squad cars, paddy wagons and school buses for the trip to jail.
    — Steven Levingston, Washington Post, 22 Feb. 2018
  • The police tracked him down and forced him into a paddy wagon with Chestnut and Watkins.
    — Jennifer Gonnerman, The New Yorker, 25 Oct. 2021
  • Behind the police was parked a paddy wagon, one of its back doors open, the corner of a bench inside it visible.
    — Caleb Crain, Harper's magazine, 22 July 2019
  • As the paddy wagons drove away, bottles, bricks and sticks flew through the air, smashing the windows of departing police cars.
    — Detroit Free Press, 15 May 2018
  • That kind of calmness, however, was starkly jolted by being in the paddy wagon.
    — Joelle Goldstein, PEOPLE.com, 14 Aug. 2020
  • Outside, dozens of uniformed officers were waiting with billy clubs and paddy wagons.
    — Eric Markowitz, Newsweek, 25 Jan. 2018
  • Hamdeed was placed in a paddy wagon, taken to jail and charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct.
    — al, 28 May 2021
  • This time, the Capitol Police didn’t have enough paddy wagons for all of the arrestees and had to transport some of us by bus.
    — Barbara Demick, The New Yorker, 27 Dec. 2019
  • Another white student was thrown into a paddy wagon for walking down the street with a female student from a local black college.
    — Lea Lane, Forbes, 17 June 2021
  • An officer called for a paddy wagon and attempted to restrain Johnson.
    — Jacob Beltran, San Antonio Express-News, 15 Mar. 2022
  • They were called out of the ranks, handcuffed and thrown into a paddy wagon in front of their unit, all shown on a video posted on the Telegram messaging app.
    — Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times, 30 Apr. 2023
  • As Perry looks away in shame, Emily's ushered into a paddy wagon, her deceased son into a hearse.
    — EW.com, 29 June 2020
  • As first responders clean up the mess and Shroud’s crew are packed into paddy wagons, the Z-Team gets their due on the local news.
    — Christopher Cruz, Rolling Stone, 13 Nov. 2025
  • They were handcuffed, placed into a police paddy wagon, and taken to the Birmingham City Jail.
    — Carol Robinson | [email protected], al, 2 June 2020
  • Soon, they were arrested, loaded into a paddy wagon and carted off to the Marion County Jail.
    — Robert King, Indianapolis Star, 4 Mar. 2018
  • Zach Turner, 6, an Arlington Heights resident who checked out the paddy wagon and discovered there was room for all his friends.
    — Elizabeth Owens-Schiele, chicagotribune.com, 21 Oct. 2021
  • Faster than a hot-rodder can shift into high gear, there were four paddy wagons, five radio cars and four tactical squads — 40 men altogether — converging on the dragsters.
    — Johnny Miller, San Francisco Chronicle, 25 Apr. 2018
  • The Associated Press reported that Fonda was taken away in a paddy wagon.
    — Nardine Saad, Los Angeles Times, 18 Oct. 2019
  • In the trailer, she can be seen crawling underneath an immigration paddy wagon, recreating one of the tactics used by Kenmure neighbors to flummox officers.
    — Matthew Carey, Deadline, 4 Mar. 2026
  • William Scott, known as Bill, was among a crowd of mostly young African Americans gathering to watch the police hustle club patrons into waiting paddy wagons.
    — Detroit Free Press, 15 May 2018
  • Several policemen dressed as Keystone Kops, have been driving about downtown Glendale streets in a black paddy wagon of ancient vintage, offering tickets for sale.
    — Scott Harrison, latimes.com, 10 Apr. 2018
  • Groups of Irish setters and their owners ambled up Fifth Avenue, along with a cavalcade of classic cars, vintage fire trucks and a Depression-era San Diego police paddy wagon.
    — Jeff McDonald, San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 Mar. 2026

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

Last Updated: