How to Use wretched in a Sentence

wretched

adjective
  • The slums were filled with poor, wretched children.
  • I don't know what's wrong with her, but she looks wretched.
  • How did we get into this wretched state of affairs?
  • What a wretched performance that was.
  • That movie was positively wretched.
  • Odysseus would have died then, wretched man—not at all his fate!
    — Homer, The New York Review of Books, 30 Mar. 2023
  • Not tired or wretched or tempest-tossed, but poor.
    — Literary Hub, 21 Jan. 2026
  • There is no end of this wretched war in sight, and there is an election looming.
    — Ayelet Waldman, The New Yorker, 30 Mar. 2024
  • Yet life in Yemen has become wretched and perilous, on a mass scale.
    — Bloomberg.com, 22 Feb. 2018
  • In fact the word poverty comes from the old French word poverté , which refers to a wretched state.
    — Rahkim Sabree, Forbes.com, 29 Aug. 2025
  • None of the wretched outside world is allowed to seep inside.
    — Jason Gay, WSJ, 7 Jan. 2019
  • Clearly, the faker must have come from some wretched hive of scum and villainy.
    — Phil Plait, Discover Magazine, 13 Aug. 2012
  • He’s asked to rattle off a long, wretched list of brutal injuries.
    — Brendan Quinn, The Athletic, 6 Aug. 2024
  • Consider how many wretched teams there have been in the last 30 years.
    — Brad Biggs, chicagotribune.com, 10 Dec. 2019
  • As a scoundrel, players decide on their own code among a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
    — Gieson Cacho, The Mercury News, 5 Sep. 2024
  • Meanwhile his wife was in Paris, alone, wretched, and very unwell.
    — Hermione Lee, The New York Review of Books, 21 Sep. 2022
  • There were still seasons, birds and bees, and days and weeks in all their wretched assuredness.
    — Literary Hub, 19 Feb. 2026
  • This is a sleazy, wretched racket, yet the film is nearly as blithe about it as Shawn is.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 13 July 2023
  • And in some cases the wretched nature of the housing was also to blame.
    — Tracy Kidder, New York Times, 5 Jan. 2023
  • Hutt gangsters, bounty hunters, wretched hives of scum and/or villainy, and so on.
    — Adam Rogers, WIRED, 8 Mar. 2018
  • Granada has played better as of late after a wretched start to the season.
    — Joseph Dycus, The Mercury News, 21 Apr. 2024
  • The room is quiet, save for a roaring fume hood to mask the wretched formalin stench.
    — Alex Prewitt, SI.com, 7 May 2018
  • But the Wolverines are keenly aware of the wretched state of their in-state rival.
    — Rainer Sabin, Detroit Free Press, 12 Nov. 2019
  • If anyone's going to bring back the wretched trucker, Uzi's a good bet.
    — Jake Woolf, GQ, 23 Feb. 2018
  • Then a wretched three-minute stretch changed the complexion of Rubio’s night.
    — Chris Fedor, cleveland, 23 Oct. 2021
  • The performance was so wretched the Colts turned to a guy who didn’t even know his teammates’ names.
    — Stephen Holder, Indianapolis Star, 17 Sep. 2017
  • As wretched as smog was, Angelenos were not about to stop driving their cars, so the cars had to change.
    — Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times, 26 Mar. 2026
  • Bekali was kept in a locked room almost around the clock with eight other internees, who shared beds and a wretched toilet.
    — Washington Post, 17 May 2018
  • Greig hadn’t exactly set out to run a hospice for the wretched refuse of the canine universe.
    — Susan Orlean, The New Yorker, 12 July 2022
  • This wretched regime is doomed to be overthrown by the risen populace and rebellious youth.
    — Efrat Lachter, FOXNews.com, 1 Jan. 2026

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