How to Use roil in a Sentence

roil

verb
  • Financial markets have been roiled by the banking crisis.
  • Smoke roiled the air, thick and black.
    — Lizzie Johnson, New Yorker, 25 Apr. 2026
  • These words alone have roiled the few cities bold enough to utter them.
    — Aaron Gilbreath, Longreads, 15 July 2019
  • Its closure has seen gas prices soar and markets roiled.
    — Chris Boccia, ABC News, 17 Mar. 2026
  • Meta has seen firsthand how morale can roil the workplace.
    — Sasha Rogelberg, Fortune, 23 June 2026
  • The sky was a deep, dusty blue, roiled by swiftly moving clouds.
    — Jody Rosen, Smithsonian, 14 June 2018
  • Water should be brought to a roiling boil and then kept there for at least a minute.
    — Dan Sweeney, sun-sentinel.com, 19 July 2019
  • The release of the emails roiled Harvard.
    — Daniel Arkin, NBC news, 25 Feb. 2026
  • On top of that, concerns over bad loans briefly roiled regional bank names.
    — Fred Imbert, CNBC, 20 Oct. 2025
  • And for the wider transportation tech landscape, which has been roiled by change in the last two years.
    — Aarian Marshall, WIRED, 7 June 2019
  • Hong Kong has been roiled by protests against the policies set in Beijing.
    — Nicholas Frankovich, National Review, 16 July 2019
  • The deal is sure roil some consumer advocates who have warned against the merger.
    — Washington Post, 11 Feb. 2020
  • In New Hampshire, a town has been roiled for months over that question.
    — Sophie Hills, The Christian Science Monitor, 12 Feb. 2024
  • Here and there, barely submerged rocks cause the water to dimple and roil.
    — Literary Hub, 28 Aug. 2025
  • In other words, the party is already roiled in a public, weeks-long fight.
    — Philip Bump, Washington Post, 8 July 2024
  • While an ocean of pain roils under the surface, of course, life continues apace.
    — David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 16 Apr. 2026
  • Other people dressed in bulky rain gear had ventured out to take in views of the roiling ocean waves.
    — John Hilliard, BostonGlobe.com, 16 Sep. 2023
  • As Brexit roils the country, at least there are some lessons Britain can still teach.
    — The Economist, 12 Sep. 2019
  • For Brown, the project proves an antidote to, or refuge from, the roiling agon of our times.
    — Matthew Gavin Frank, Harper's Magazine, 4 May 2023
  • How could he possibly be expected to see a trick of the limbs amid all that roiling chaos?
    — Rich Cohen, WSJ, 22 June 2018
  • Bell agreed, ending the contentious lawsuit that has roiled the sport for the past 14 months.
    — Jordan Bianchi, New York Times, 12 Dec. 2025
  • The election was always going to roil the markets, and not just on election night.
    — Anne Sraders, Fortune, 8 July 2020
  • The roiling air above Keck blurs the details that are already obscured by the gas.
    — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, 14 Nov. 2018
  • The whales started roiling and a sudden gush of blood reddened the water.
    — Nathan Rott, NPR, 27 Mar. 2026
  • The rise has been especially stark in cities that have been roiled by enforcement surges and protests.
    — Isabelle Chapman, CNN Money, 19 Feb. 2026
  • Employers have had their backs up against a wall for months as turnover woes continue to roil the workforce.
    — Megan Leonhardt, Fortune, 22 Feb. 2022
  • When protests roiled Columbia, the school closed its campus to the public.
    — Miriam Jordan, New York Times, 28 Mar. 2025
  • The issue roiled the country, though most did not share Esper’s paranoia.
    — Alice George, Smithsonian Magazine, 27 Nov. 2023
  • And that bloody plume, which roiled the fish-farm debate on both sides of the border in December?
    — Morning Brief, The Seattle Times, 6 July 2018
  • The city has been roiled with water supply problems since 2014.
    — Naomi Lim, Washington Examiner, 9 Mar. 2020

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