How to Use thorny in a Sentence

thorny

adjective
  • The next phase is even thornier.
    — Eric Cortellessa, Time, 23 Oct. 2025
  • Each scene that unfolds is thorny and tense.
    — Kati Chitrakorn, CNN Money, 10 Oct. 2025
  • Trade could prove equally thorny.
    — Hanako Montgomery, CNN Money, 27 Oct. 2025
  • The process to get a refund could be thorny for some.
    — Solcyré Burga, Time, 9 Sep. 2025
  • Feig says that was his nod to the thorny ethics of true crime as a genre.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 2 May 2025
  • Its large, thorny stems creep out from the base of the plant to form a thicket.
    — Megan Hughes, Better Homes & Gardens, 28 Apr. 2026
  • Left in the thorny bushes of the graveyard is a clue.
    — Todd Martens, Los Angeles Times, 28 Apr. 2026
  • The gloves are best for pruning hedges and working with thorny plants.
    — Renee Freemon Mulvihill, Better Homes & Gardens, 13 Apr. 2023
  • This was part of his reasoning to fans in that thorny email last month.
    — Simon Hughes, New York Times, 1 May 2026
  • Nobody wants to deal with life's thornier questions.
    — Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 23 Oct. 2025
  • This is a very thorny path forward for the Vikings over the next month.
    — Alec Lewis, New York Times, 1 Nov. 2025
  • Use a grasp of how things work to get to the bottom of a thorny problem.
    — Tribune Content Agency, oregonlive, 14 Dec. 2020
  • My mom’s thorny shrug to my question told me there was no use asking why.
    — Hazlitt, 14 Aug. 2024
  • Some parts of this tale are thornier, and lesser known, than others.
    — Alison Herman, Variety, 20 Aug. 2025
  • For now, the thorny problem is there just aren’t enough humans who want to do the work.
    — Lee Powell, Washington Post, 20 Sep. 2022
  • In this case, all of that is wrapped in another thorny issue.
    — Cindy Dampier, chicagotribune.com, 7 Sep. 2019
  • The debate around boosters boils down to a few thorny questions.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 22 Sep. 2021
  • The leaves were massed between and behind thorny rose shrubs along the borders.
    — Ian McEwan, The New Yorker, 1 Aug. 2022
  • Anyway, what about those buses, the thornier portion of the old app?
    — Christopher Bonanos, Curbed, 25 Mar. 2026
  • Your neighbors may not want to deal with its thorny leaves encroaching on their yard.
    — Karen Brewer Grossman, Southern Living, 30 Apr. 2026
  • The problem, as is so often the case, is the thorny question of what comes next.
    — Daniel R. Depetris, Newsweek, 13 Dec. 2024
  • For workers with school-age children, the challenge can be even thornier.
    — Laura Garcia, ExpressNews.com, 18 Mar. 2020
  • No shining silver eyes, no dark mass in a bark-brown suit, no crown of thorny holly.
    — Carly Tagen-Dye, PEOPLE, 24 Oct. 2025
  • First, though, there’s the thorny question of trial funding.
    — Ana Castelain, Bloomberg, 28 Jan. 2026
  • None of that is to say this thorny issue has met a neat resolution.
    — Matt Slater, The Athletic, 22 Nov. 2024
  • Now that the cleanup of the waterway has begun, a thorny question emerges.
    — New York Times, 9 Apr. 2021
  • His knack for diplomacy helped douse the embers of thorny issues he was asked to help with.
    — Carol Cain, Freep.com, 13 Sep. 2025
  • The rebirth solves a thorny problem for the snack food company.
    — Aj Willingham, CNN, 3 Feb. 2020
  • The Utah farm's ground is rough and covered with thorny brush, Cooley said.
    — Michael Ruiz, Fox News, 15 June 2022
  • That could leave you or your heirs with a thorny financial mess and even the prospect of foreclosure.
    — Kelsey Neubauer, CNBC, 31 May 2025

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