How to Use pay phone in a Sentence

pay phone

noun
  • Twin looked at the pay phone, then down at the dead boy.
    — Literary Hub, 29 Jan. 2026
  • That’s when there were pay phones and a call cost five cents.
    — Smithsonian, 29 July 2017
  • Joanne found a pay phone to call him and give him her answer.
    — Melissa Locker, Southern Living, 23 June 2024
  • Rankin had done the walk himself, from the pay phones to the blast site.
    — Adam Carlson, PEOPLE.com, 1 Jan. 2020
  • Gabi locates the pay phone in question, and waits for a call.
    — Matt Webb Mitovich, TVLine, 3 Oct. 2024
  • The suitcase, speed boat, and pay phone all point to some kind of crime story.
    — Meagan Fredette, refinery29.com, 24 Mar. 2018
  • The call is later determined to have been made from a pay phone near the park.
    — Cnn Editorial Research, CNN, 22 July 2021
  • But the nearest pay phone was several miles away, and the night was rainy and cold.
    — New York Times, 10 Jan. 2022
  • Even now that most of us have phones in our pockets, pay phones aren't going anywhere.
    — Kevin Dupzyk, Popular Mechanics, 27 Nov. 2015
  • The sidewalk patron then quietly made his way to a pay phone and called the cops.
    — oregonlive, 10 Jan. 2022
  • The only way to reach a friend was to call on a land line, pay phone, or jump on the bike and head over to her house.
    — Nellah Bailey McGough, Southern Living, 16 Feb. 2017
  • While the final pay phone will no longer be in service, it won't be forgotten.
    — Jordan Mendoza, USA TODAY, 23 May 2022
  • Ten years later, a man called a real estate agency from a pay phone and asked to see a home.
    — Carol Robinson | [email protected], al, 2 Feb. 2023
  • Schneider was in great voice, returning to the pay phone a time or two before the set was through.
    — Dina Kaur, AZCentral.com, 20 Feb. 2026
  • Reporters, some from as far away as New York, raced for the pay phone in the lobby.
    — oregonlive, 15 Feb. 2023
  • Free 911 calls can also be made at pay phones at all transit stations.
    — oregonlive.com, 31 July 2019
  • According to Greenberg, my dad got up to use the pay phone outside.
    — Kristen McGuiness, Rolling Stone, 7 Aug. 2022
  • Another reporter beat her to a pay phone in a nearby drugstore.
    — Katherine Rosman, New York Times, 11 Nov. 2022
  • Tap-to-pay phone payments and credit and debit cards will be accepted.
    — Nathan Brown, The Indianapolis Star, 13 May 2021
  • Police said Green, a mother of four, had left her home to use a pay phone and never returned.
    — Frank Fernandez, USA TODAY, 21 Nov. 2019
  • This was a man who ran a million-dollar operation from a pay phone on a street corner.
    — Monica Mercuri, Forbes, 5 Sep. 2024
  • Every 3 or 4 miles, farms had a social place to gather and talk, make calls on the pay phone or just have lunch.
    — WSJ, 5 Dec. 2017
  • Hoffa called his wife, Josephine, from a pay phone to say that he'd been stood up at a lunch meeting with two mobsters.
    — Emma Dale, Detroit Free Press, 30 July 2020
  • Emory occasionally sent money, and the brothers would walk to a pay phone to call him.
    — Heidi Blake, New Yorker, 8 June 2026
  • For all those reasons, the American teen summer job was going the way of the pay phone.
    — Washington Post, 28 June 2021
  • Thompson was drunk and talking on a pay phone outside a liquor store, authorities said.
    — CBS News, 28 Jan. 2026
  • Sometime later, Jaeger and Wellmaker were near a pay phone when the sedan pulled up.
    — Jacques Billeaud, azcentral, 7 May 2018
  • Deals were often made on the restaurant’s pay phone, which was the first one installed in Hollywood.
    — Lesley Solmonson, Smithsonian, 24 Feb. 2017
  • Being there again, Bowling noticed an inset in a wall where there once was a pay phone that students used to call home.
    — Praveena Somasundaram, Washington Post, 1 Sep. 2023
  • The pay phone host provides power, an internet connection, and a place to install the unit.
    — Mack Degeurin, Popular Science, 27 Aug. 2025

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