How to Use tar pit in a Sentence

tar pit

noun
  • Evening fell and the day’s gentle breeze died down, leaving the river as still as a tar pit.
    — Jason Horowitz, New York Times, 23 Apr. 2023
  • Last month, the La Brea tar pits announced a new master plan.
    — Carolina A. Miranda, latimes.com, 12 July 2019
  • This will shift the flow of visitors into the park and therefore the tar pits.
    — Carolina A. Miranda, latimes.com, 6 June 2019
  • Donald sailed by guard Quinton Spain, who looked as if he were stuck in a tar pit.
    — Los Angeles Times, 13 Feb. 2022
  • Leaving the tar pits, Samberg passed a sculpture of a giant sloth, which kids were climbing on.
    — Dana Goodyear, The New Yorker, 25 Mar. 2023
  • The ranch’s woodlands and tall grasslands are complemented by unique tar pits, ponds and flowing streams.
    — Katie Brown, The Mercury News, 9 July 2019
  • However, the cake is far too stout, takes too long to bake, and comes out looking like a tar pit that a triceratops would be preserved in.
    — Brian Moylan, Vulture, 26 Sep. 2025
  • Like mammoths sinking in a tar pit, everyone just seems to be doing their best in a bad situation.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 1 Dec. 2022
  • And like Sabbath, these guys get that channeling a trudge through the tar pits can yield much heavier results than playing fast.
    — Ed Masley, azcentral, 5 Mar. 2020
  • If these tar pits were in New York, the mafia would’ve just dumped all of lower Manhattan into this.
    — Leah Feiger, WIRED, 6 Dec. 2024
  • Even when the wind here cooperated, Gordita was still like living on a houseboat anchored in a tar pit.
    — David Kipen, latimes.com, 18 Apr. 2018
  • Hello from sunny Los Angeles, where the Moon Juice and tar pits never stop flowing.
    — Soleil Ho, SFChronicle.com, 15 July 2019
  • The closest relatives of these mystery organisms are typically found in German tar pits and oil wells.
    — Popular Science Team, Popular Science, 13 Aug. 2025
  • Today, visitors to Los Angeles can visit the tar pits to learn about the fossils discovered there.
    — Ashley Strickland, CNN, 5 Aug. 2019
  • The tar pits trap collagen, a connective tissue that enables researchers to precisely date the specimens.
    — Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 18 Aug. 2023
  • Last summer, Leger was expecting to see a dramatic increase in fossils as construction approached the tar pits.
    — CBS News, 22 Mar. 2018
  • Back on earth, just underneath the surface, the La Brea tar pits are the world’s top Ice Age archaeology site.
    — Chadd Scott, Forbes, 11 Sep. 2024
  • The tar pits provide a remarkably complete cross-section of life at the time, preserving birds, small reptiles, insects, plants and even pollen that fell into the muck along with larger mammals.
    — Corinne Purtill, Los Angeles Times, 17 Aug. 2023
  • But then, just as suddenly, the erotic thrillers disappeared, pushed into the tar pits by superheroes, sequels, and a self-infantilizing industry.
    — Joshua Rothkopf, EW.com, 24 Jan. 2024
  • The amoeba shape encroached on the tar pit, which is an active excavation site, and the director of the natural-history museum objected.
    — Dana Goodyear, The New Yorker, 5 Oct. 2020
  • Researchers examined hundreds of bones from the extinct animals dug out of the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles over the last century.
    — Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 July 2023
  • Today, listening to coaches with multi-million-dollar contracts pontificate about the virtues of the bygone era of amateur athletics reminds you of dinosaurs with one foot stuck in the tar pits.
    — Chris Dorsey, Forbes, 16 Jan. 2025
  • Advertisement Viren evokes the bubbling tar pit that is high school with exquisite precision, the hot froth of personal and intellectual discovery.
    — Melissa Holbrook Pierson, Washington Post, 22 June 2023
  • In 2024, China will sink deeper into the tar pit of economic stagnation caused by statism and a refusal to embrace free market capitalism.
    — James Rogan, Washington Examiner, 15 Jan. 2024
  • Until China rejects the policies of Xi and embraces capitalism, the country will sink deeper and deeper into the tar pit of economic stagnation.
    — James Rogan, Washington Examiner, 15 Jan. 2024
  • Steer horns, assorted bottles, a wagon wheel, and even rusty vintage firearms were recovered from the grotto floor in 1995—akin to a La Brea tar pit for the pioneer set.
    — Sunset, 22 Jan. 2018
  • Researchers found this by studying microbial communities in water samples from Trinidad and Tobago's Pitch Lake, the world's largest natural asphalt lake (less prettily, a tar pit).
    — April Reese, Discover Magazine, 7 Aug. 2014

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