How to Use croak in a Sentence
- We could hear the frogs croaking by the pond.
- The man could only croak his name.
- He had a heart attack and croaked.
- He tried to speak but could barely croak.
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Frogs croaked from a nearby ditch; birds trilled from the field’s edge.
—Kirk Johnson, New York Times, 9 May 2020
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The sounds of nature hover throughout the symphony, whether in the form of croaking frogs or howling wolves.
—National Geographic, 19 Apr. 2018
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In the West, various species of toads will bury themselves in the ground for almost a year, waiting to come out and croak for a few weeks during the rainy season.
—Sami Emory, Outside Online, 27 Mar. 2018
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Watching from bare branches, ravens warbled and croaked.
—Kyle Hopkins, ProPublica, 24 Oct. 2019
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Each holds up fingers to determine his or her place in line, or marks timing by croaking like a frog.
—Brian Seibert, New York Times, 21 Mar. 2018
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Loud chirping crickets and croaking frogs in the evening mean warming, clear weather the next day, just like Sunday and Monday.
—Tom Stienstra, San Francisco Chronicle, 28 May 2018
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Daltrey and Townshend croaked their way though their greatest hits medley.
—Kevin Cusick, Twin Cities, 20 Feb. 2017
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One summer day, my phone rang from an unknown number, and Robbins’s deep but sweetly croaking voice boomed on the line.
—Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New York Times, 23 Jan. 2018
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For now, her two dogs, Wendy and Capitán, wait by the hamper; the roosters continue to croak; and a mother clutches her daughter’s photo in one hand and a rosary in the other.
—Washington Post, 28 June 2021
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Those living close to water are used to the regular serenade of croaking frogs.
—Jefferson County Cooperative Extension, AL.com, 18 July 2017
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There are nearly 5,000 different species of frogs hopping, croaking, and swimming across the Earth of all different shapes and sizes.
—Sara Kiley Watson, Popular Science, 4 Apr. 2020
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Jim Tonelli said, bullfrogs croaking in a pond on his property.
—Lee Bergquist, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 25 June 2018
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If that weren't enough, the curse gets worse and worse over time, until the infected adventurer croaks completely.
—Steven Strom, Ars Technica, 28 June 2017
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But our zeal to croak mosquitoes by spraying poisons all over our neighborhoods and ourselves did not end back then.
—Time, 30 June 2017
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While the croaking vocals of singer Johannes Andersson keep the band tied to the genre, elements of goth, post-punk, prog and classic rock are just as prevalent throughout the album.
—Bram Teitelman, Billboard, 1 Mar. 2018
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When the chorus arrives, though, the track quickly shifts, the women’s voices suddenly crowded with high-pitched distortions and croaking stops.
—Doreen St. Félix, The New Yorker, 19 May 2017
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Curtains of Spanish moss hang limply from cypress trees; frogs croak from their lily pad perches, and lazy alligators float through backwater channels.
—Dallas News, 4 May 2020
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Imagine the coniferous forests of the American West and you probably picture tall trees, forest floors littered with pine needles and pinecones, black bears, mountain lions, croaking frogs, and mountain blue birds.
—National Geographic, 12 Aug. 2019
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Their courtship rituals can include preening, croaking, puffing, tail fanning and attack.
—William Booth, The Seattle Times, 26 Oct. 2018
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Kidman's divine performance notwithstanding, this reviewer was ready for Satine to croak by the 15-minute mark of Luhrmann's exhausting film, which throws you into a melee of cacophonous medleys and flashy quick cuts that never let up.
—Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY, 10 June 2019
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And my girlfriend wasn’t thrilled when her character unexpectedly croaked after a single bout of exhaustion.
—Chris Welch, The Verge, 24 Mar. 2018
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At the end, men of the gamelan removed their jackets and hilariously leaped up from their instruments to hop and croak like virtuoso frogs who then evolve up the species ladder into a raucous community of brotherhood.
—Mark Swed, latimes.com, 20 Feb. 2018
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Mono Lake in California has a huge population of frogs that normally croak in unison to keep predators from locating and targeting individual frogs.
—John Schandelmeier, Anchorage Daily News, 18 Apr. 2020
- We could hear the frogs croaking by the pond.
- The man could only croak his name.
- He had a heart attack and croaked.
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The guys call out to the gals in croaks that kind of sound like duck quacks.
—Angela Fritz, Washington Post, 22 Feb. 2018
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The medicine was audible in the slow, soft croak of her voice.
—Katrine Jo Andersen, The New Republic, 27 June 2018
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As the herring returned, so too have the croaks of spring peepers, a kind of frog.
—Jess Bidgood, New York Times, 4 July 2017
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Soon, the croak of Atlanta’s very own Wizrd filled the studio.
—Mankaprr Conteh, Rolling Stone, 22 July 2022
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A peculiar croak heard within the Amazon rain forest leads to the naming of a new species of frog.
—National Geographic, 18 Jan. 2017
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Then a persistent cough turned her delivery into a croak that was painful to the ear.
—Stephen Castle, New York Times, 4 Oct. 2017
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This frog’s croak sounded a lot like someone breaking wind, causing her to crack up.
—Alice Rudge, Quartz, 28 Aug. 2019
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Where dust once blew, bullfrogs croak, waterfowl dive for food and in some areas tiny fish swim.
—David Whiting, Orange County Register, 27 Jan. 2017
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In its native Puerto Rico, the coquí frog’s eponymous croak is the stuff of lullabies.
—Eleanor Cummins, Popular Science, 15 Jan. 2020
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Other fish, such as cusk-eels, have dedicated sonic muscles that push on these bladders to bang like a drum or croak like a frog.
—Sabrina Imbler, New York Times, 10 Nov. 2020
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Morrissey, who had an unvarnished croak for a voice and a melodic style that was very much his own, once called to his roommate from another room.
—BostonGlobe.com, 23 July 2011
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This lower tone with a little smoky croak around the edges can sound casual and natural — to some — or neurotic and unsure to others.
—Amy Dickinson, Detroit Free Press, 6 Mar. 2018
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This lower tone with a little smoky croak around the edges can sound casual and natural --- to some -- or neurotic and unsure to others.
—Amy Dickinson, chicagotribune.com, 6 Mar. 2018
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The croak of thousands of invisible amphibians falls suddenly silent as the vets pass by on the way to Puntung's enclosure.
—Henry Nicholls, Scientific American, 30 May 2012
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The forest routes Stefano guided us through were blissfully empty, including the 2016 Olympic cycling route, filled only with the hum of birds and bugs, and the occasional croak of the toucans.
—Mercedes Bleth, Condé Nast Traveler, 20 July 2023
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Bullfrogs croak and Yaqui topminnows wiggle through the pool once fed solely by natural artesian wells pulling ancient water from an aquifer.
—Anita Snow, The Christian Science Monitor, 18 Dec. 2020
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Sounds of 17th-century natural life in Manhattan — chirps, caws, groans, croaks, screeches — are now available on the website Unsung.
—Jim Dwyer, New York Times, 25 Apr. 2017
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From rainforests and deserts to Arctic tundra and coral reefs, hear the howls, croaks, hums, trills, clicks, growls, and cries of animals in the wild, and see this rich symphony of sound made visible through real-time streaming spectrograms.
—San Francisco Chronicle, 28 Apr. 2023
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Prior to Edison’s dolls, talking toys relied on a manual mechanism — a spring that sounded like frog’s croak, for example — to produce a sound.
—Carl Engelking, Discover Magazine, 5 May 2015
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But his voice is nimble, a deep outer-borough croak that is a register or two away from demonic, before bursting into a girlish giggle.
—Jason Zinoman, New York Times, 26 Feb. 2020
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The way Dylan’s relationship-dirges croak with characteristic gruffness safeguards them against that sort of frailty.
—Hannah Seidlitz, Longreads, 10 Aug. 2020
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With an effortless flow and singsong style reminiscent of Gucci Mane at his peak, the East Atlanta rapper croaks melodic bars about the peril and pleasure of the street life over hypnotic beats that smash video game synthesizers into 808 bass.
—Chris Kelly, Washington Post, 29 Mar. 2023
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Behind a shock of chest-length hair and Lennon-style glasses, Scheidt is a regular meditator, and his guttural screams and croaks touch on themes of positivity, personal improvement, and transcendence.
—The New Yorker, 31 Mar. 2017
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When swung aboard, the 17-inch speck verified its gender by uttering a series of croaks, a vocalization female specks are physiologically unequipped to create.
—Shannon Tompkins, Houston Chronicle, 22 Mar. 2018
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Frogs croak, a skylark soars above all in dazzling pianistic glitter, grasshopper warblers rattle as their names suggest, and one reed warbler enters into a rapturous contrapuntal duet with another.
—Los Angeles Times, 27 Sep. 2021
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The guys call out to the gals in croaks that kind of sound like duck quacks.
—Angela Fritz, Washington Post, 22 Feb. 2018
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The medicine was audible in the slow, soft croak of her voice.
—Katrine Jo Andersen, The New Republic, 27 June 2018
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As the herring returned, so too have the croaks of spring peepers, a kind of frog.
—Jess Bidgood, New York Times, 4 July 2017
-
Soon, the croak of Atlanta’s very own Wizrd filled the studio.
—Mankaprr Conteh, Rolling Stone, 22 July 2022
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A peculiar croak heard within the Amazon rain forest leads to the naming of a new species of frog.
—National Geographic, 18 Jan. 2017
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'croak.' 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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