How to Use unsanctioned in a Sentence

unsanctioned

adjective
  • He was sentenced to a month in jail for an unsanctioned protest.
    — James Marson, WSJ, 14 Sep. 2018
  • But there are unsanctioned beaches too — go nude at your own risk.
    — Amber Randall, sun-sentinel.com, 14 Apr. 2021
  • Then there are unsanctioned acts of protests by players and fans.
    — Christina L. Myers, The Conversation, 6 Feb. 2025
  • The sanctioned tool does not work well enough to do the job, but the unsanctioned one does.
    — Dan Adika, Forbes.com, 23 June 2026
  • There was no sign outside, since the store seems to have been legally unsanctioned.
    — Louis Menand, The New Yorker, 19 Aug. 2024
  • There are more banks that are still unsanctioned, however, as well as the oil and gas sector.
    — Tim Fernholz, Quartz, 25 Feb. 2022
  • The lack of examples doesn’t mean that unsanctioned parties are safe.
    — Jesse Leavenworth, courant.com, 5 Nov. 2020
  • Many citizens had camped out at unsanctioned polling places overnight, daring police to evict them.
    — Benjamin Hart, Daily Intelligencer, 1 Oct. 2017
  • Still, that’s not stopping parents and students from hosting off-site, unsanctioned prom events.
    — From Usa Today Network and Wire Reports, USA TODAY, 25 Mar. 2021
  • Later, Sly got up to yell at someone who had tried to make an unsanctioned entrance into the room.
    — Timothy Crouse, Rolling Stone, 9 June 2025
  • Last year’s event was marred by gunfire at a park that wounded three people during a large, unsanctioned concert.
    — Daniel Hunt, Sacbee.com, 19 Apr. 2026
  • Alex takes the Ducks on an unsanctioned field trip, hoping some legendary hockey magic will turn the team around.
    — Jacob Siegal, BGR, 18 Oct. 2022
  • Some unsanctioned tours, posted by current students, have racked up hundreds of thousands of views.
    — Rachel Wolfe, WSJ, 11 Mar. 2021
  • Companies tend to deploy too many apps, and that often doesn’t include rogue, unsanctioned apps.
    — Jim Brennan, Forbes, 18 May 2022
  • At least three have also been killed during unsanctioned drag racing events, Engstrom said.
    — oregonlive, 1 Dec. 2021
  • If that data moves through unsanctioned channels or lands in public models, it’s exposed.
    — Mark Doble, Forbes.com, 9 Sep. 2025
  • The city had an unsanctioned 200-person homeless camp near downtown.
    — Lawrence Mower, Miami Herald, 5 Mar. 2024
  • The city had an unsanctioned 200-person homeless camp near downtown.
    — Douglas R. Clifford, Sun Sentinel, 6 Mar. 2024
  • In a climate of wartime censorship, the mere expression of an unsanctioned thought begins to feel like a protest action.
    — The New Yorker, 1 Apr. 2022
  • For that reason, his ten-man tag team match will now be an unsanctioned, Lights Out Steel Cage match.
    — Andrew Ravens‎, MSNBC Newsweek, 21 Aug. 2025
  • The effect is a bit cacophonous, but the piece depicts myriad ways (sanctioned and unsanctioned) in which men might touch each other.
    — Los Angeles Times, 16 Oct. 2019
  • Puma’s Popovic believes unsanctioned races have taken over for run clubs as the best form of community building.
    — Ian Servantes, Footwear News, 11 Nov. 2025
  • Only one victim who died in the fire was a resident of the warehouse, while the others were attending the unsanctioned event.
    — Megan Cassidy, SFChronicle.com, 10 June 2019
  • Such unsanctioned protests are extremely rare, and Cuban police were out in force on Monday to control them.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 13 July 2021
  • Those unsanctioned bush tracks are as much a part of Cajun culture as Sunday Mass and crawfish boils.
    — New York Times, 28 Apr. 2021
  • Neither his contract nor the CBA provides him with a right to use unsanctioned equipment.
    — Michael McCann, SI.com, 11 Aug. 2019
  • While Wednesday is on this unsanctioned field trip, Morticia and Thing have a falling out of their own.
    — Jessica M. Goldstein, Vulture, 6 Aug. 2025
  • Rather than identify the problem, as it was supposed to, Claude used an unsanctioned work-around without telling researchers.
    — Elias Wachtel, The Atlantic, 25 Apr. 2026
  • This is akin to the shadow IT problem of unsanctioned cloud apps, but now with AI services.
    — Ofer Klein, Forbes.com, 2 Sep. 2025
  • Sanctioned e-sports (video game tournaments) would be OK, but no betting could happen on unsanctioned sports of any kind.
    — Anna Staver, The Denver Post, 12 Oct. 2019

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