How to Use sabotage in a Sentence

sabotage

1 of 2 noun
  • Officials have not yet ruled out sabotage as a possible cause of the crash.
  • Angry workers were responsible for the sabotage of the machines.
  • Coach’s gift for self sabotage should be studied in a lab.
    — Brian Moylan, Vulture, 5 Mar. 2026
  • Now, his self-sabotage has stripped a good deal of that power away.
    — Andre Gee, Rolling Stone, 25 Oct. 2022
  • With the element of sabotage, this game can and will get messy.
    — Sydney Bucksbaum, EW.com, 1 Sep. 2022
  • To return to any of that would be complete sabotage.
    — Christina Dugan Ramirez, FOXNews.com, 10 Dec. 2025
  • Like, baby, that is sabotage, that is straight double chin.
    — Brian Anthony Hernandez, PEOPLE, 25 Jan. 2026
  • Pundits suspected at the time that this might turn out to be an act of self-sabotage.
    — Eric Cortellessa, Time, 22 Nov. 2022
  • There were no initial signs of sabotage or negligence by the train crew.
    — Toluse Olorunnipa, Justine McDaniel and Ian Duncan, Anchorage Daily News, 26 Feb. 2023
  • She is trapped in a life of self-sabotage and alcoholism that will not lead to anything good.
    — Annie Lane, cleveland, 31 Aug. 2022
  • Acts of sabotage on a daily basis.
    — Preston Fore, Fortune, 27 Sep. 2025
  • Winners do self-mastery work to release self-sabotage and rise.
    — Magi Helena, Dallas Morning News, 15 Jan. 2026
  • This is self-sabotage with better branding.
    — Jodie Cook, Forbes.com, 19 Aug. 2025
  • This month tests your ability to evolve without self-sabotage.
    — Valerie Mesa, PEOPLE, 4 Nov. 2025
  • Their novel is based on the true story of Britain’s first female sabotage agent.
    — Dan Kelly, Kansas City Star, 24 Mar. 2024
  • Young is blisteringly self-aware of her own methods of self-sabotage.
    — Thania Garcia, Variety, 19 Sep. 2025
  • The blasts were widely considered to be the result of sabotage.
    — Anna Cooban, CNN, 11 Oct. 2023
  • Contact your lawyer and put a stop to her intentional sabotage.
    — Jeanne Phillips, The Mercury News, 2 Feb. 2024
  • Is decision fatigue leading to self-sabotage in your love life?
    — Mark Travers, Forbes.com, 20 Aug. 2025
  • Trump is doing more damage with his self-sabotage than any opponents could hope to inflict on him right now.
    — Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 8 Dec. 2022
  • The roof once protected that smokestack from sabotage by rival mobs.
    — Mackensy Lunsford, Nashville Tennessean, 30 Dec. 2025
  • Recognize the red flags of sabotage, plan your next chapter, and prepare to ride the wave to your big exit.
    — Lien De Pau, Forbes.com, 30 Jan. 2026
  • But even so, this is a date movie to be used in relationship sabotage maneuvers.
    — David Rooney, HollywoodReporter, 29 Aug. 2025
  • Not through sabotage, but through inertia.
    — Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 2 June 2026
  • Your big goals attract sabotage Sharing your most important goals puts them at risk.
    — Jodie Cook, Forbes.com, 17 Jan. 2026
  • The book positions the idea of climate sabotage as a logical form of activism, but the film works as a heist film.
    — Kevin L. Clark, Essence, 10 Oct. 2022
  • The pipes ruptured last week in what was widely described as an act of sabotage, though no evidence has yet emerged about who was to blame.
    — Anton Troianovski, New York Times, 3 Oct. 2022
  • Cavetown’s Robbie Skinner has made a habit out of singing about self-sabotage.
    — Stephen Daw, Billboard, 15 July 2022
  • Your intuition is sharp, but so is your capacity to self-sabotage.
    — Valerie Mesa, PEOPLE, 17 June 2026
  • This wasn’t a coincidence, this was triple sabotage at the UN.
    — James Bickerton, MSNBC Newsweek, 25 Sep. 2025

sabotage

2 of 2 verb
  • The airplane crashed because it was sabotaged.
  • The lawyer is trying to sabotage the case by creating confusion.
  • The deal was sabotaged by an angry employee.
  • They sabotaged the enemy's oil fields.
  • Or maybe Putin had agreed but now was sabotaging it.
    — James Verini, The Atlantic, 12 May 2026
  • Even seasoned home cooks can fall into these habits that can sabotage any meal.
    — Jessica Safavimehr, Southern Living, 28 Apr. 2026
  • At first, the injury consumed her mind and sabotaged her runs.
    — Zak Keefer, New York Times, 11 Feb. 2026
  • That meant there were no detractors on the panel who might have tried to sabotage its work.
    — Eric Cortellessa, Time, 12 Jan. 2023
  • Some types of gossip seemed designed to sabotage the home-front war effort.
    — Greg Daugherty, Smithsonian Magazine, 6 Mar. 2024
  • And to be clear, your boss isn’t always trying to sabotage your career.
    — Forbes, 18 Jan. 2022
  • But will the queens sabotage each other's chances of snatching the crown week after week?
    — David Oliver, USA TODAY, 20 May 2022
  • But overloading the machine is one way to sabotage your aim for freshness.
    — Patricia Shannon, Southern Living, 4 Jan. 2026
  • These traits serve relationships but can sabotage careers if used the wrong way.
    — Jodie Cook, Forbes.com, 17 Jan. 2026
  • And, if so, why would Tehran sabotage it in this indirect fashion?
    — Melik Kaylan, Forbes, 17 Aug. 2022
  • But if crispy, golden-brown edges are the goal, that shortcut is sabotaging your success.
    — Alexandra Emanuelli, Southern Living, 22 Oct. 2025
  • Did Suarez sabotage his teammate?
    — Saajan Jogia, MSNBC Newsweek, 7 Oct. 2025
  • Brier also says that if a groundhog does sabotage your home, don’t expect insurance to save you.
    — Geoff Williams, USA Today, 30 June 2026
  • Some products are loaded with sugar and calories, which can sabotage your weight loss efforts.
    — Amber Smith, Discover Magazine, 23 Dec. 2022
  • But, there are a lot of opportunities here for whoever wants to sabotage it to do so.
    — ABC News, 5 Oct. 2025
  • Avoid these common reed diffuser errors that can sabotage your home fragrance game.
    — Patricia Shannon, Better Homes & Gardens, 1 Nov. 2025
  • But one of them is actually a mole, secretly tasked with trying to sabotage their wins.
    — Michael Schneider, Variety, 7 Oct. 2022
  • Brandon sabotaged the first fake production idol by opening the birdcage in front of his entire tribe.
    — Dalton Ross, EW.com, 27 Apr. 2023
  • Behind the scenes, emotions or old habits may be sabotaging your momentum.
    — Valerie Mesa, PEOPLE, 9 Jan. 2026
  • My digital blue dog past was sabotaging my future.
    — Jason Barnard, Rolling Stone, 7 Aug. 2025
  • That said, the consensus seems to be that adding instructions to code that sabotage other people’s work goes too far.
    — Dan Goodin, ArsTechnica, 28 May 2026
  • Johnny Depp fan, and presumably, only took the job in order to sabotage her own client.
    — Dani Di Placido, Forbes, 30 Apr. 2022
  • Are invisible fears attempting to sabotage what needs to be said?
    — Usa Today, USA Today, 18 Aug. 2025
  • There has been the suggestion that this could sabotage Djokovic’s quest to collect the most men’s singles majors.
    — Jason Gay, WSJ, 17 Jan. 2022
  • But it must be done without jeopardizing the future or sabotaging the present.
    — Roderick Boone, Charlotte Observer, 19 June 2026
  • Sarah is on the hunt for a fellow competitor who tried to sabotage her while the group travels to Vienna.
    — Washington Post, 21 Feb. 2022

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