How to Use turpentine in a Sentence

turpentine

noun
  • Any container would do—whiskey or ale jugs, salt or turpentine vats.
    — Brian Jacobson, The Atlantic, 8 Sep. 2017
  • Its odor is described as pungent and like turpentine.
    — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 4 Mar. 2026
  • Wet a sponge or clean cloth with turpentine and tamp the stain from the back vigorously to break up the paint.
    — Lauren Smith McDonough, Good Housekeeping, 2 Feb. 2023
  • All woodwork, desks, chairs, tables and doors should be wiped off with a cloth wet with linseed, kerosene and turpentine.
    — Craig Hlavaty, Houston Chronicle, 15 Jan. 2018
  • Most needle bearing trees produce a sticky sap that is loaded with turpentine.
    — Tim MacWelch, Popular Science, 26 Dec. 2019
  • There was the rum that tasted alarmingly of turpentine, the liqueur that seemed to give me a splitting headache.
    — M. Carrie Allan, Washington Post, 29 July 2019
  • Nothing beats good ol’ fashioned turpentine for cleaning pine-tree sap off your Christmas tree tools.
    — Joseph Truini, Popular Mechanics, 12 Dec. 2022
  • Some people find the odor of this plant reminds them of citrus or mint, while others identify the smell with turpentine.
    — Joshua Siskin, Oc Register, 8 May 2026
  • Contessa's neighbor had been using turpentine to clean paint off a table, the man explains.
    — Leila Atassi, cleveland.com, 14 Mar. 2018
  • Broadly defined, these were rope, tree trunks for use as masts, and liquid products taken from conifer trees like turpentine, rosin, pitch, and tar.
    — Literary Hub, 12 Aug. 2025
  • The British navy gobbled up the colonies’ longleaf for its rot-resistant wood and gummy sap, from which turpentine and pitch were made.
    — Ryan Dezember, WSJ, 9 Oct. 2018
  • Residents worked in lumber yards, turpentine mills and, later, at a factory that turned trees into pencils.
    — Lane Degregory, orlandosentinel.com, 5 Sep. 2021
  • One involved suspending seed pearls over a boiling solution of vinegar and turpentine, which softened the pearls into paste.
    — Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, 14 Dec. 2017
  • The resin most likely came from trees such as the mastic gum or Chios turpentine, which historically have been used for preservation.
    — Becky Lang, Discover Magazine, 18 Nov. 2013
  • Its signature vista is an inland rainforest of Kauri pines, giant ferns, and turpentine trees that can live for a thousand years.
    — Matthew Abbott, Environment, 18 Dec. 2020
  • Many worked in the turpentine, lumber and citrus industries in Groveland.
    — Audra D. S. Burch, New York Times, 15 Oct. 2022
  • The people of Rosewood farmed or worked at the sawmill in the town of Sumner, some three miles away, or at a turpentine camp in Wylly.
    — Craig Pittman, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 Jan. 2023
  • Two-thirds of the pine trees at the entrance are broken, snapped over into inverted V's, dripping turpentine tears, pointing their jagged splinters at the sky.
    — By Michael Browning, miamiherald, 25 Aug. 2015
  • To soothe cavities, Waters said her family relied on turpentine and cotton.
    — Andrea Castillo, latimes.com, 24 June 2017
  • The sidewalks were literally covered with burning turpentine balls.
    — Sara Sidner, CNN, 21 Oct. 2019
  • To slow the process of decay, a turpentine-like solution was sometimes injected as an enema to dissolve the digestive tract.
    — George Johnson, Discover Magazine, 30 July 2013
  • Store smelly wood such as cedar or pine and petroleum products, including tar paper, paint, turpentine, kerosene, rubber and charcoal fluid.
    — Sarah Moore, Freep.com, 8 May 2026
  • Many of the pupils who went to school there were the children of people who worked hard picking oranges or harvesting turpentine in rural Lake County.
    — Joy Wallace Dickinson, orlandosentinel.com, 5 Dec. 2021
  • The sticks were daubed with smells like (to English-speaking sensibilities) leather, orange, fish, garlic and turpentine.
    — The Economist, 18 Jan. 2018
  • Whites plundered and attacked Greenwood with machine guns and turpentine Molotov cocktails dropped from airplanes.
    — Maria C. Hunt, House Beautiful, 1 June 2021
  • This ethereal scene is interrupted by a splash of turpentine that erases the color and returns us to the reality of the bare canvas and the artist’s spontaneous actions upon it.
    — Roberta Smith, New York Times, 19 Mar. 2020
  • Melton Futch was an only child, born to a couple who had moved from rural Georgia to the Florida Panhandle to find work at a saw mill and turpentine still.
    — New York Times, 6 Apr. 2021
  • Smith was the only person Uncle George allowed in his studio, and the boy silently observed how to stretch a canvas, mix oils and turpentine, and use pigments to bring life to a blank surface.
    — Steven Levy, Wired, 31 Aug. 2021
  • Newspaper clippings touted goose grease and turpentine as remedies for the disease that claimed more than 300 lives in Stearns County during the deadliest four months.
    — Jenny Berg, Star Tribune, 28 May 2021
  • The area also contains a storied history as home to Seminole Indians before serving the turpentine and logging industries.
    — Patrick Connolly, orlandosentinel.com, 15 Oct. 2021

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