How to Use squalor in a Sentence

squalor

noun
  • I was shocked by the squalor of their surroundings.
  • The family was living in squalor.
  • Amid such profound squalor and chaos, the mice forgot how to be mice.
    — Fredrick Kunkle, Washington Post, 19 June 2017
  • Many came from grinding poverty and squalor.
    — Alexandra Schwartz, New Yorker, 9 Feb. 2026
  • Last year, there was an outbreak of typhus in the squalor near skid row.
    — oregonlive, 1 Mar. 2020
  • Restoring order from squalor felt like a stab at inner peace.
    — Michelle Ruiz, Vogue, 12 Oct. 2021
  • His pictures of urban squalor can still make the viewer smile, and think.
    — A.v. | New York, The Economist, 25 June 2019
  • Gazans have lived in squalor for generations.
    — Jeff Robbins, Oc Register, 11 Aug. 2025
  • It was hailed as a possible turning point for those living in squalor.
    — latimes.com, 29 May 2018
  • Experience both love and squalor, even if there is no Esme in your life.
    — WSJ, 26 Oct. 2017
  • Even in the camps, many end up living in squalor with little assistance.
    — Sam Mednick, The Seattle Times, 4 June 2017
  • His novels explore the moral squalor of all wars, justified or not.
    — Literary Hub, 16 June 2025
  • The spread of hepatits was partly blamed on the squalor in which the homeless were living.
    — Michael Smolens, sandiegouniontribune.com, 20 May 2018
  • The cast, meanwhile, seems as if it has been lifted from the squalor of another era.
    — Randy Myers, Mercury News, 14 Jan. 2026
  • Michael and his neighbors are living lives marked by despair and joy, squalor and dancing.
    — Teresa M. Pelham, courant.com, 17 Mar. 2018
  • The vibrance and squalor of the city in the seventies is spread across these pictures like a greasy film.
    — Chris Wiley, The New Yorker, 11 Nov. 2019
  • The cottage retains its utopian squalor.
    — Literary Hub, 28 Aug. 2025
  • All this is in the middle of a cold, hard city that seems indifferent to urban squalor.
    — Carl Nolte, San Francisco Chronicle, 16 Mar. 2018
  • Now the park offers not much of either, persisting as an island of squalor.
    — Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle, 7 May 2018
  • But, like Hole in the Wall, J’s showed persistence in its squalor.
    — David J. Neal, Miami Herald, 26 Jan. 2024
  • Many were attracted by leafy streets and large homes that offered a refuge from urban tensions and squalor.
    — Blair Kamin, chicagotribune.com, 10 Dec. 2020
  • And while these tenants paid their rent month after month, some of them up to $900 a month to live in squalor.
    — Nikki Dementri, CBS News, 20 Apr. 2026
  • Through the squalor, cold, frozen tap water and constant threat of death, there was one warm constant — their mother’s love.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 Sep. 2022
  • To the Arntzens, each represents a different facet of squalor.
    — Curbed, 24 Oct. 2022
  • The children reportedly lived in squalor and weren’t enrolled in school.
    — Brian Niemietz, New York Daily News, 27 June 2026
  • Police found the children living in squalor while seeking a 12-year-old boy who had run away from home.
    — Don Sweeney, sacbee, 16 May 2018
  • In fact, Legasov would have lived in an entirely different kind of squalor than the fireman did.
    — Masha Gessen, The New Yorker, 4 June 2019
  • But does the vitality mask the squalor or the squalor the vitality?
    — Spin Team, SPIN, 20 Apr. 2026
  • Critics dubbed these settings Greeneland, as if the squalor and trauma were pure invention.
    — Washington Post, 15 Jan. 2021
  • In the instance mentioned, the surrounding fuzz kneeled and prayed for the motherless – in the squalor of their hairy grief.
    — Riley Van Steward, Forbes, 2 Jan. 2023

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