How to Use stalemate in a Sentence

stalemate

1 of 2 noun
  • The new agreement could break the stalemate.
  • The budget debate ended in a stalemate.
  • The budget debate ended in stalemate.
  • Bias, hate and stalemate serves no one for very long.
    — Eleanor Dearman, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 14 Feb. 2026
  • If not, then that could mean an even longer stalemate.
    — Jeff Cox, CNBC, 6 Oct. 2025
  • Levine is eager to see a break in the stalemate.
    — Don Stacom, Hartford Courant, 20 Apr. 2026
  • Thune said his offer was not enough to end the stalemate.
    — Allison Pecorin, ABC News, 16 Oct. 2025
  • The draft came and went without a move, so the stalemate drags on.
    — Mike Jones, New York Times, 11 May 2026
  • Where does the funding stalemate stand?
    — Drew Pittock, USA Today, 29 Apr. 2026
  • The first round of the fight appears to have ended in a stalemate.
    — Jacky Wong, WSJ, 2 Mar. 2023
  • Yet this outcome now seems like a stalemate, if not a defeat.
    — Dominic Tierney, Foreign Affairs, 25 Mar. 2024
  • The vote marks the latest sign of stalemate between the two sides.
    — Al Weaver, The Hill, 6 Oct. 2025
  • This approach risks a stalemate.
    — Lake County News-Sun, Chicago Tribune, 27 Aug. 2025
  • But the end of the stalemate failed to produce an agreement.
    — Kaia Hubbard, CBS News, 11 Dec. 2025
  • Each country has blamed the other for the stalemate.
    — Bart Jansen, USA Today, 23 Apr. 2026
  • The four-person council had reached a stalemate over who should fill the seat.
    — Hannah Elsmore, San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 Nov. 2025
  • In the third, a stalemate ensued, with neither team able to muster much.
    — Kyle Newman, Denver Post, 22 Mar. 2026
  • Markets, for now, appear to have made their peace with the stalemate.
    — Anniek Bao, CNBC, 4 May 2026
  • More than a month later, an end to the stalemate appears nowhere in sight.
    — Rachel Treisman, NPR, 5 Nov. 2025
  • All of these exchanges inevitably end in some sort of cringe-comedic stalemate.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 24 Jan. 2026
  • The draw against Palace was their third meeting in a row to end in a stalemate.
    — Anantaajith Raghuraman, New York Times, 11 Sep. 2025
  • Ukraine’s naval success has been a bright spot amid the costly stalemate on the ground.
    — Mark Cancian, Foreign Affairs, 8 Feb. 2024
  • All that drama … for a stalemate and statement?
    — James Hibberd, HollywoodReporter, 8 May 2026
  • But as the stalemate has dragged on, some Democrats have been looking for a way out.
    — Nathaniel Weixel, The Hill, 6 Nov. 2025
  • The countries appear locked in a stalemate.
    — Ben Finley, Los Angeles Times, 29 Apr. 2026
  • But the war lasted six more years, much of it in a military stalemate.
    — Sudarsan Raghavan, New Yorker, 7 Apr. 2026
  • The stalemate leaves us with the status quo, which is … really not that bad.
    — Ryan Kartje, Los Angeles Times, 26 Jan. 2026
  • In 1988, the war ended in a stalemate.
    — Jeffrey Fields, The Conversation, 4 Apr. 2026
  • The agreement ends - for now - the contract stalemate between the two sides.
    — oregonlive, 25 July 2023
  • The result is a strategic stalemate.
    — Billy Perrigo, Time, 23 June 2026

stalemate

2 of 2 verb
  • And the talks have been essentially stalemated since on these last two.
    — CBS News, 28 Aug. 2019
  • Meanwhile, the vote doesn't go anywhere and everyone agrees to stalemate.
    — Sydney Bucksbaum, EW.com, 3 May 2023
  • Instead, everyone lines up and simply tries to plug his hole or stalemate his blocker.
    — Andy Benoit, SI.com, 8 Sep. 2017
  • Throw in hot weather and a confusing war that has stalemated much of the progress that was being made or could be made.
    — Burt Solomon, The Atlantic, 4 Apr. 2018
  • The teams had been stalemated since the sixth inning before Croppy’s blast.
    — Pioneer Press, Twin Cities, 27 May 2017
  • With the two sides stalemated, the state entered what would become a historic, two-year budget impasse.
    — Kim Geiger, chicagotribune.com, 25 May 2018
  • The war is stalemated, that seems so obvious now except for the fact that both sides totally deny it.
    — Devlin Barrett, Washington Post, 25 Apr. 2023
  • While most of the ground fighting is stalemated along that front line, both sides are targeting other territory with long-range weapons.
    — Susie Blann and Elise Morton, Chicago Tribune, 28 May 2023
  • The issues that originated the obsession with the region have all been either solved or stalemated.
    — Stephen Marche, Esquire, 9 July 2013
  • During the regular session budget talks stalemated largely on the overall size of the spending plan.
    — News Service Of Florida, Sun Sentinel, 8 Apr. 2026
  • During the regular session, budget talks stalemated largely on the overall size of the spending plan.
    — Cbs Miami Team, CBS News, 8 Apr. 2026
  • But both presidents shared similar impatience with a balky Congress and a desire to take action when stalemated.
    — Peter Baker, New York Times, 13 Oct. 2017
  • And partisan differences have stalemated spending bills in the Senate.
    — Sarah Binder, Washington Post, 24 Jan. 2018
  • The Doha stalemate over the frozen funds is the clearest sign yet that the wider relationship the license depends on is not stabilizing on schedule.
    — Güney Yıldız, Forbes.com, 1 July 2026
  • With the bases loaded and the game stalemated at 1-1 at the top of the eighth inning, a pair of infield errors by Apopka helped the Huskies score two runs.
    — OrlandoSentinel.com, 7 Apr. 2018
  • The infighting has left vets frustrated, Congress confused — and a key piece of legislation stalemated.
    — Isaac Arnsdorf, ProPublica, 15 May 2019
  • Even if the shutdown comes to an end soon, most of the government will only have funding secured through January, which could lead to further stalemate in the not too distant future.
    — Miranda Jeyaretnam, Time, 10 Nov. 2025
  • Italy stalemated France, too, until the 71st minute, when winger Louis Lynagh was sin-binned for a deliberate knock-on.
    — ABC News, 22 Feb. 2026
  • With Congress and the White House stalemated, some are eyeing the end of the month as the next potential deadline to reopen government.
    — Jason Ma, Fortune, 13 Oct. 2025
  • Meantime, the House investigation, itself, has been stalemated by a week of partisan wrangling.
    — David Lauter, latimes.com, 31 Mar. 2017
  • For months, the LNA and the militias have been locked in fierce clashes on Tripoli’s southern outskirts, with the fighting mostly stalemated.
    — Washington Post, 20 Dec. 2019
  • Was the media partly culpable for pressuring the authorities to put an end to an expensive operation that seemed to be stalemated?
    — Noel Murray, Chron, 10 Apr. 2023
  • The diplomacy has been stalemated for months, with North Korea pressing the United States to make concessions by year’s end.
    — Washington Post, 10 Dec. 2019
  • The front-line fighting largely stalemated over the winter, with expectations of major offensives by both sides expected in more favorable spring weather.
    — Hanna Arhirova, BostonGlobe.com, 22 Mar. 2023
  • But as long as Ukrainian forces continue periodically to move forward and the Russians prove unable simply to stop them and hold them, the war will not be stalemated.
    — Karolina Hird, Time, 3 Aug. 2023
  • With the high representative largely passive, Bosnia was stalemated between incompatible horizons, each side strong enough to block but too weak to prevail.
    — Adis Maksić, The Conversation, 19 Nov. 2025
  • Even so, the accord was embraced by Biden and enactment would signal a significant turnabout after years of gun massacres that have yielded little but stalemate in Congress.
    — Alan Fram, ajc, 12 June 2022
  • Using our example, a situation in which a buyer expected a home’s doorbell security camera to be included in the purchase — and the seller expected to take it — could stalemate the sale.
    — Steven P. Dinkin, San Diego Union-Tribune, 30 June 2019
  • The six commissioners — three Democrats and three Republicans — frequently stalemate along party lines, resulting in dismissals of cases.
    — Meg Kinnard, ajc, 20 July 2022
  • But Larson was among the 105 representatives to approve the bill after debate ended, though property tax reform ultimately failed when the two chambers stalemated.
    — Jasper Scherer, San Antonio Express-News, 20 Feb. 2018

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