How to Use sanguinary in a Sentence

sanguinary

adjective
  • But even a cursory glance at the news that emanates from the Buddhist world reveals a more sanguinary state of affairs.
    Amar Diwakar, The New Republic, 23 Mar. 2018
  • For months the armies have fought battles more sanguinary than Waterloo without making progress except in terms of yards.
    Darren Orf, Popular Mechanics, 6 Apr. 2017
  • But most of the works in this show of 28 artists come from some place closer to the end, where violent outcomes are expressed in sanguinary hues.
    Mark Jenkins, Washington Post, 26 May 2023
  • Or some other colorful character in some other sanguinary chamber with some other lethal weapon?
    John Beifuss, Memphis Commercial Appeal, 16 Mar. 2026
  • The details of that latest outrage bore all the markings of the sanguinary and absurd cycle of racist police violence.
    Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, The New Yorker, 7 May 2021
  • These sanguinary sprinklers use this defense only on members of the dog and cat families, like coyotes or bobcats, but not on birds or reptiles.
    Liz Langley, National Geographic, 23 Sep. 2017
  • In a series of sanguinary close-ups, Elvira takes a cleaver to her digits, first slicing them and then fully dismembering them.
    Andrew McGowan, Variety, 23 Dec. 2025
  • But for those hoping to slake their bloodlust a little sooner, there’s a whole world of sanguinary anime — with and without vampires — out there just waiting for viewers to sink their teeth into.
    John Maher, Vulture, 4 June 2021
  • The sanguinary battles of partisan politics turn pale when compared to the literary tussling taken up in defense of one's favorite noodle natatorium.
    Troy L. Smith, cleveland.com, 5 Oct. 2017
  • Last month, Uganda finally declared the country free of hemorrhagic fevers after three months of battling these seemingly omnipresent sanguinary viruses.
    Rebecca Kreston, Discover Magazine, 24 Nov. 2012
  • The sanguinary stream in the tapestry may refer to the strife that drove Moufarrege’s family from both Alexandria and Beirut, as the papyrus and the tile pattern would suggest.
    New York Times, 19 May 2020
  • Visitors seek out traces of Escobar’s sanguinary reign while also making the trek to Comuna 13 to hear stories of revolutionary mayhem.
    Los Angeles Times, 10 Oct. 2022
  • To be categorically clear, there cannot be any moral equivalency between a monstrous and sanguinary apostle of death like Al-Zawahiri and the supreme champion of free speech, Salman Rushdie.
    Melik Kaylan, Forbes, 17 Aug. 2022
  • No discriminatory intent should be inferred here; all over the place, in dioramas set up by dealers to pitch their sanguinary wares, soldiers of every nationality and ethnicity were massacring soldiers of every other nationality and ethnicity.
    Glenn Garvin, miamiherald, 28 Jan. 2018

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