How to Use thrall in a Sentence

thrall

noun
  • I'm not your thrall, so you'll have to pick up after yourself.
  • The football world is still in thrall to them.
    — Oliver Kay, New York Times, 24 June 2026
  • Archer is now under the witch’s thrall.
    — Louis Peitzman, Vulture, 8 Aug. 2025
  • Christ is in thrall to a dodgy stranger who can see into the future.
    — James Parker, The Atlantic, 15 Oct. 2019
  • Biden these days is not a candidate who is in the thrall of handlers.
    — Walter Shapiro, The New Republic, 6 Jan. 2020
  • This is already obvious to some of us — those not in the thrall of gang green.
    — Chris Reed, Star Tribune, 12 Feb. 2021
  • That night Jean was completely in thrall to her dreams, as if drugged on them.
    — Hannah Gold, Harper’s Magazine , 26 Oct. 2022
  • Federer and Nadal have held men’s tennis in thrall for close to two decades.
    — Jason Gay, WSJ, 24 Sep. 2022
  • Venice, the unchanging city, seems in the thrall of energy that is brand new.
    — Nathan Heller, Vogue, 23 Aug. 2022
  • Without that, kids are caught in the thrall of sports, which serves the industry but not its players.
    — Soraya Roberts, Longreads, 10 Aug. 2020
  • Maybe the young guns are in thrall to Federer, Djokovic and Nadal.
    — oregonlive, 1 June 2021
  • Like the ancient mariner, Joe captured an audience and held it in his thrall.
    — Bob Goldsborough, chicagotribune.com, 29 Sep. 2019
  • The man, who cannot speak, has the media, the police and medical experts in his thrall.
    — Carol Memmott, Washington Post, 2 Jan. 2020
  • Wiener is our guide to a realm whose denizens have been as in thrall to a dizzying sense of momentum as consumers have been.
    — Ismail Muhammad, The Atlantic, 8 Feb. 2020
  • Or a whole chunk of Asia will fall back into thrall to the West's global rivals.
    — Melik Kaylan, Forbes, 3 Nov. 2021
  • Hokusai, on the other hand, doesn’t seem in thrall to drama or narrative.
    — Washington Post, 22 Jan. 2020
  • But LaPierre just kept spending, held in thrall to the demands of his lieutenants.
    — Jake Bittle, The New Republic, 9 June 2022
  • The raw quantity of time one spends in the thrall of screens says almost nothing about the value of the time spent.
    — Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 23 Oct. 2025
  • Octavian denounced Antony as a man in the thrall of a foreign queen and waged war on the couple.
    — National Geographic, 20 May 2019
  • Watching them all increasingly in thrall to their creation builds a thrill into the evening.
    — David Benedict, Variety, 6 Dec. 2022
  • But is that good enough to attract shoppers who are in the thrall of SUVs?
    — Mark Takahashi, Car and Driver, 3 June 2022
  • The America of the show is, even more than our own, in thrall to superhero culture.
    — Doreen St. Félix, The New Yorker, 21 Sep. 2020
  • Certainly, they are aroused by the concept of being ruinously in its thrall.
    — Daniel Kolitz, Harpers Magazine, 24 Oct. 2025
  • Like, why does everyone under Gladys' thrall run the same way, with wild eyes and their arms jutting out sharply to the side?
    — EW.com, 8 Aug. 2025
  • They are being aided and abetted by those on both sides of the aisle who -- perhaps in thrall to wealthy donors -- are prepared to turn a blind eye.
    — Keith Magee, CNN, 6 Aug. 2021
  • In this telling, Wolf, in thrall to Marjorie, reluctantly agreed.
    — oregonlive, 25 Oct. 2022
  • There are several cruise ships that are already in the thralls of dealing with coronavirus or the fear that surrounds its spread.
    — Morgan Hines, USA TODAY, 11 Feb. 2020
  • Lennlee Keep’s delightful essay explores a variety of board games and what keeps us in their thrall.
    — Claire S., Longreads, 4 Feb. 2022
  • Sports has long been in thrall to its ownership, and coaching demi-gods, and not the actual talent that drives the games.
    — Jason Gay, WSJ, 3 Jan. 2019
  • In thrall to their progressive base, the Democrats are not grounded by any semblance of pragmatism.
    — Jay Cost, National Review, 1 July 2019

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