How to Use above the fray in a Sentence

above the fray

idiom
  • For most of the race, Hunter tried to stay above the fray.
    Matt Sledge, NOLA.com, 3 Nov. 2020
  • The boulder leans to the right, bullying a thin slab of green; at the back a large wedge of bright red remains above the fray.
    Roberta Smith, New York Times, 14 Sep. 2023
  • Publicly, Nixon ran a smart campaign, seeming to stay above the fray.
    Ted Widmer, WSJ, 5 Nov. 2022
  • As Rocky did at first with Lang, DeSantis has tried to remain above the fray.
    Dean Obeidallah, CNN, 29 Jan. 2023
  • Golf likes to hold itself up as a game of high integrity and morals, somehow above the fray.
    Ron Kroichick, San Francisco Chronicle, 8 June 2022
  • Even assets that can fly can’t always keep above the fray of a fragmenting world.
    Jon Sindreu, WSJ, 26 Mar. 2022
  • But even if his sector is demanding, Huang is trying to stay above the fray.
    Bychloe Berger, Fortune, 23 May 2024
  • As Warnock tried to stay above the fray, Walker’s campaign careened through a series of scandals.
    Shannon McCaffrey, Anchorage Daily News, 9 Nov. 2022
  • Even so, Zelensky managed to stay somewhat above the fray.
    Siobhán O'Grady, Washington Post, 16 Dec. 2023
  • But Medvedev, 25 and with just one major title to his name, also has the luxury of remaining above the fray.
    New York Times, 28 Jan. 2022
  • As the song wraps, a woman’s voice rises above the fray, an angry mob surrounding the rapper, hands banging on the Bentley.
    John Arterbury, Rolling Stone, 17 Mar. 2022
  • And, even more impressive in a country where the political red/blue divide seems omnipresent, the NFL seems to float above the fray.
    Dante Chinni, NBC News, 12 Feb. 2023
  • But while the other hopefuls battled for second-place Wu, the front-runner, stayed more or less above the fray, taking little fire.
    BostonGlobe.com, 17 Oct. 2021
  • Schiff went into the debate attempting to stay above the fray and avoid attacks from the candidates scrambling for second place.
    Benjamin Oreskes, Los Angeles Times, 23 Jan. 2024
  • Meditation gets you to listen to the noise, observe the onslaught without judgement, hold yourself above the fray.
    Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, Forbes, 8 May 2021
  • But this is also the type of project that manages to lift itself up above the fray by sheer will and chops, not to mention its determination to scratch a throwback-genre itch.
    David Fear, Rolling Stone, 11 Aug. 2023
  • While space activities might seem literally above the fray, that’s not truly the case.
    Ramin Skibba, Wired, 4 Mar. 2022
  • Part of his appeal was seeming to be above the fray, not entirely aligned with this or that party, but a person who was called to serve, who served in the public interest.
    Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 28 Sep. 2022
  • In his speech on Thursday, the President needs to stay above the fray and make clear that his comments are not about partisan gain but repairing the democracy.
    Julian Zelizer, CNN, 1 Sep. 2022
  • Though the former vice president tried to stay above the fray and on message, the onslaught frustrated and angered Biden, much like the tens of millions of people watching at home.
    Joey Morona, cleveland, 30 Sep. 2020
  • Our final entry is with the season 15 champion found a way to stay above the fray while pitting alliance members against each other.
    Dalton Ross, EW.com, 3 July 2022
  • Higher education leaders have tried stay above the fray.
    Alia Wong, USA TODAY, 14 Apr. 2023
  • In the midst of weekend reporting about the status of coronavirus and its potential to shut down the major college football season, a set of two tweets stood out above the fray.
    Randy Johnson, Star Tribune, 11 Aug. 2020
  • Schulz has largely tried so far to stay above the fray of the fissures that have divided her party on a national level, rarely even mentioning Cox by name.
    Rebecca Tan, Washington Post, 7 July 2022
  • In contrast to her frantic attempts to reset the narrative in 2016, Swift so far has chosen to stay above the fray, referring to the matter only obliquely.
    Vulture, 3 June 2023
  • Leni, who is following in her mother’s modeling footsteps, has chosen to remain above the fray.
    Carrie Wittmer, Glamour, 2 Nov. 2022
  • Allison Rodriguez changes stations:Here's where and when to watch her debut Springer stayed slightly above the fray Springer somehow managed to stay just slightly above the fray (a low bar, granted).
    Bill Goodykoontz, The Arizona Republic, 27 Apr. 2023
  • Witness Robert Mueller, and his pathetic insistence on remaining above the fray while Rome was burning.
    Michael Tomasky, The New Republic, 21 Feb. 2022
  • The role of vice president has traditionally been the more overtly political of the two, leaving the president to, as discussed, float a bit more above the fray.
    Anita Chabria, Los Angeles Times, 13 Apr. 2023
  • Stanford fared much better in its second rivalry meeting against Cal, winning 84-49 to remain two games above the fray with four left in the regular season.
    Jeff Metcalfe, The Mercury News, 19 Feb. 2024

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