How to Use untended in a Sentence

untended

adjective
  • Aurore stopped at one of them, making her way through its untended lawn to the front door.
    — Zoey Poll, The New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2019
  • Lula and Simba had lived for months in their own untended waste.
    — Robin Wright, The New Yorker, 24 Apr. 2017
  • Just down the street, thousands of chickens clucked in an untended poultry shed.
    — Steve Hendrix, Washington Post, 18 Oct. 2023
  • Inevitably, like weeds in an untended garden, the leukemia cells would grow and take over his blood system again.
    — Alice Park, Time, 10 Aug. 2017
  • And a lot of us grow up like a weed in the crack in the sidewalk someplace—untended, unguided.
    — John J. Lennon, The New Yorker, 14 Apr. 2024
  • This spring, some untended gardens are testaments to that loss.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 22 May 2021
  • Pokeweed, a thug by summer’s end, is already eight feet tall in untended areas.
    — Washington Post, 24 July 2019
  • Negele warns of untended campfires and sparks from vehicle tailpipes catching on high grass.
    — Kate Massinger, Slate Magazine, 15 Aug. 2017
  • What few subplots there are go largely untended once the fight machine grinds into motion.
    — Bill Goodykoontz, The Arizona Republic, 27 Feb. 2023
  • But the memory of those who died has largely gone untended in Chamonix.
    — The Economist, 20 Dec. 2019
  • The land was unplanted and untended; there were no fences or hedges, barely any trees, and no signposts or road markings.
    — Kate Eshelby, Travel + Leisure, 25 June 2024
  • Dean steals cars where the others are scarcely capable of filching a loaf of bread from an untended grocery.
    — Lily Rothman, Time, 5 Sep. 2017
  • The yard at Dina’s house is brown and untended; a play set that once belonged to Max sits in the sun unused.
    — Sean Elder, Town & Country, 21 Nov. 2017
  • The first is related to safety and Metro stations that can feel lonely and untended.
    — Los Angeles Times, 17 Sep. 2022
  • But there’s a difference between a meadow-style front lawn and one that’s simply overgrown and left untended.
    — Michelle Mastro, The Spruce, 17 May 2026
  • These days, his officers guard against burglaries in closed, untended storefronts.
    — New York Times, 3 Dec. 2020
  • Healthy-seeming bees would simply fly away and never come back, leaving behind combs full of honey and a dying, untended queen.
    — Thor Hanson, WSJ, 29 June 2018
  • No one seemed to know for sure, but rumor had it that deep inside the 10 acres of dark, untended woods on the church property, a stream might flow.
    — Erika Page, The Christian Science Monitor, 12 July 2021
  • In addition, plants that aren’t thoughtfully selected can get too big for the space, making your front door look messy and untended.
    — Arricca Elin Sansone, Southern Living, 20 June 2026
  • Each section of a garden grows independently and, left untended, will die.
    — Jane Hanson, Forbes, 28 Mar. 2024
  • Landscaping is reduced to untended shrubs and patches of gravel, dirt and malnourished lawn.
    — Aaron Randle, kansascity, 4 Mar. 2018
  • To leave a floppy disk untended for twenty years does not permit one to pick it up later and reminisce, the way a letter or a photograph does.
    — Wyatt Williams, Harpers Magazine, 26 May 2026
  • Left untended, these patients, many with dementia or psychiatric illnesses, might get out of bed and hurt themselves.
    — Jessica Silver-Greenberg, New York Times, 15 Dec. 2022
  • Nearly two million others have abandoned their homes and remain scattered around the country, leaving behind ghost towns and untended fields.
    — Megan Specia and Kassie Bracken, New York Times, 30 May 2018
  • Without microglia to trim them back, the germ-free fishes’ social neurons became tangled and overgrown like an untended bramble.
    — Joanna Thompson, Quanta Magazine, 15 Nov. 2022
  • After you're finished, dry the walls completely with your clean towels, being careful to avoid water streaks or soggy spots left untended.
    — Mary Catherine McAnnally Scott, Southern Living, 26 Aug. 2025
  • Some slave owners used the peach harvest as a kind of festival for their chattel, and runaways provisioned their secret journeys in untended orchards.
    — William Thomas Okie, Smithsonian, 14 Aug. 2017
  • Buffers include everything from berms and lines of trees to prevent pesticide drift to 100-foot areas of untended land.
    — Thomas Heaton, Los Angeles Times, 10 Apr. 2026
  • Get Rid Of Clutter Knick-knacks, stacks of magazines, and piles of untended laundry can be magnets for dust.
    — Karen Brewer Grossman, Southern Living, 10 Apr. 2026
  • Get Rid Of Clutter Knick-knacks, stacks of magazines, and piles of untended laundry can be magnets for dust.
    — Karen Brewer Grossman, Southern Living, 26 Dec. 2025

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