How to Use pinball in a Sentence

pinball

verb
  • So many more must content themselves with pinballing around the margins.
    — Michael Phillips, chicagotribune.com, 24 Apr. 2018
  • But that was just the start of Davos pinballing around Westeros.
    — Stephanie Merry, chicagotribune.com, 18 Aug. 2017
  • At one point, hysterical laughter breaks out, pinballing from tree to tree.
    — Kelsey Ables, Washington Post, 30 Jan. 2020
  • Jenny pinballed off their bodies, her flight suit buffering impacts, and burst outside.
    — David Canfield, EW.com, 23 Sep. 2019
  • Sione Takitaki has pinballed between the second and third unit this spring.
    — Dan Labbe, cleveland.com, 6 June 2019
  • Rollicking in the movie’s background is an economy pinballing into full tilt.
    — Ty Burr, BostonGlobe.com, 11 July 2018
  • Elijah Just rumbled toward the box and seemed to pinball around the Iranian defense.
    — Iliana Limón Romero, Los Angeles Times, 16 June 2026
  • Even if the initial option doesn’t score, the Timbers have been able to pinball shots and passes through the box to create messy — but effective — goals.
    — Julia Poe, orlandosentinel.com, 9 Aug. 2020
  • Everyone expected this one to be a shootout where points would pinball around the stadium scoreboards and tackles and third-down stops would be at a premium.
    — Tom Noie, The Indianapolis Star, 28 Nov. 2020
  • At 150 feet up, Harrington slipped and fell, pinballing off the rocks before finally being caught in her rope.
    — Scott Ostler, SFChronicle.com, 30 Nov. 2019
  • Now that the rock is coasting in interplanetary space instead of pinballing around the Earth-moon system, its journey is more predictable.
    — Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 20 Mar. 2020
  • On the previous play English caught a short pass and turned it into a 49-yard gain, pinballing and picking his way through throngs of defenders.
    — Nathan Cambridge, Burbank Leader, 30 Aug. 2019
  • The ball pinballed toward second base, but second baseman Logan Forsythe had already broken toward the hole.
    — Seth Berkman, New York Times, 23 Apr. 2016
  • Manu Ginobili pinballed his way into the paint for a right-handed layup, then drove again to find LaMarcus Aldridge for a dunk.
    — Jeff McDonald, San Antonio Express-News, 9 Apr. 2018
  • Another rebound goal put the Hurricanes ahead 2-1 as the puck pinballed to Hamilton for an easy shot into the short side of the net.
    — Ken Tysiac, The Seattle Times, 30 Mar. 2019
  • The Cameroonian kids, who have never been outside their country, were dizzy with excitement as word of their good fortune pinballed around their hilly neighborhood.
    — Ronnie Polaneczky, Philly.com, 11 July 2018
  • That seemed like a lifetime removed from the first steps Leo took on a football field as a young immigrant trying to pinball his way through American culture.
    — Conor Orr, SI.com, 24 Apr. 2018
  • To be sure, pinballing from one crisis to the next is not unprecedented, particularly for a White House still finding its footing.
    — Jonathan Lemire, Orange County Register, 16 Feb. 2017
  • However, the Danish defender was in an offside position when the ball - which was pinballing around the area - came off Bobadilla and fell to the right foot of Vestergaard.
    — SI.com, 18 Feb. 2018
  • And at a school in Manhattan, a principal told me how accommodating children from nearby shelters caused her student roster to pinball up and down, and her teachers just had to adjust.
    — Elizabeth A. Harris, New York Times, 20 June 2016
  • The narrative has many other sub-stories, occasionally pinballing between them without transition or antecedent.
    — Boris Fishman, New York Times, 6 June 2017
  • Expect more of the same chaotic pinballing all the way through the end of the regular season because there are at least 12 teams in the Eastern Conference with a reasonable look at a playoff spot.
    — Patrick Brennan, Cincinnati.com, 24 Aug. 2017
  • The free-form narrative goes pinballing around such diverse areas as particle physics, Christian myth (those guides weren’t assigned to the trip by a commercial tour operator) and the perils of conformity.
    — Joe Morgenstern, WSJ, 8 Mar. 2018
  • The cinematography is luscious and the action sequences impressively staged, especially a massive brawl in which the camera becomes a kinetic player in the fray, pinballing dizzily around the room.
    — Stephen Dalton, The Hollywood Reporter, 25 May 2017
  • LaBeouf spent most of his youth pinballing back and forth between the set of the Disney show that gave him his big break and the various 12 step programs of his father, a former professional clown and recovering heroin addict.
    — Emma Stefansky, HWD, 17 Mar. 2018
  • Lobbied by rival advisers, the president pinballed between his militaristic and anti-interventionist impulses.
    — Author: Philip Rucker, Robert Costa, Alaska Dispatch News, 22 Aug. 2017
  • One moment Avenatti is pinballing among courtrooms across the country for high-stakes litigation, including last year's $454 million judgment in a surgical-gown fraud case, one of the largest in California history.
    — Manuel Roig-Franzia, chicagotribune.com, 26 Mar. 2018

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

Last Updated: