How to Use headlong in a Sentence

headlong

1 of 2 adverb
  • I dove headlong to the floor.
  • The girls team wasn't even the only squad that ran headlong into this rule this year.
    Nancy Armour, USA TODAY, 6 Mar. 2023
  • So where did that instinct come from to, like, run headlong into the scary new thing?
    Gideon Lichfield, WIRED, 9 Aug. 2023
  • Even before the flashing lights of the rides and games fan out in front of you, the scents of sugar and barbecue smoke smack you headlong.
    Jenna Schnuer, Anchorage Daily News, 30 Aug. 2023
  • Sikora is having the time of his life as a man who likes to mix it up and dive headlong into danger.
    Nina Metz, chicagotribune.com, 11 Mar. 2022
  • But the other joy of Milsap is that he’s never been afraid to throw himself headlong into the stunt.
    Joseph Hudak, Rolling Stone, 2 Oct. 2023
  • But the doctrine has run headlong into shifts in policing.
    Patrik Jonsson, The Christian Science Monitor, 29 June 2020
  • The ones who zip along streets headlong like Tour de France cyclists speeding across the Champs-Elysees.
    Los Angeles Times, 6 Nov. 2021
  • While Saul runs headlong from any shot at redemption, Kim confesses to her crimes and sets the record straight about Howard.
    Erik Kain, Forbes, 13 Aug. 2022
  • The thing about special drives like that is the painful finality of things when emotions crash headlong into the guardrail.
    Bryce Miller, San Diego Union-Tribune, 1 Apr. 2023
  • So why does Marvel Studios have to race headlong into the same narrative cul-du-sac that the comics did?
    Adam B. Vary, Variety, 13 Nov. 2023
  • None of that is stopping the companies from rushing headlong into the space.
    Gerrit De Vynck, Washington Post, 30 May 2023
  • And Caitlin ran headlong into the relationship with Charles Bryant that summer of 2016.
    Jim Axelrod, CBS News, 14 Aug. 2021
  • To be sure, not everyone—big or small—is driving headlong into the EV future.
    Mergermarket, Forbes, 27 May 2021
  • Trying to bounce back from Covid, the world has run headlong into an energy crisis.
    Christopher Helman, Forbes, 19 Oct. 2021
  • Nuveman Deniz’s willingness to shed ego and dive headlong into the deep end of the role-changing pool has been noticed.
    Bryce Miller, San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 May 2023
  • Allin fell headlong into booze and drugs while putting out albums — punk, spoken word, and country — mostly on cassette in the 80s.
    Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter, 29 Nov. 2022
  • Suddenly, on either side of you, granite cliff walls soar as high as 5,000 feet, and glaciers plunge headlong into the water.
    John Oseid, Forbes, 11 Oct. 2022
  • Then a tropical storm sent a huge amount of moisture up the coast from Mexico, running headlong into the heat wave.
    Alex Wigglesworth, Los Angeles Times, 27 Apr. 2021
  • But this week McCarthy ran headlong into the most perilous challenge of his career.
    Los Angeles Times, 9 Jan. 2023
  • Konkle echoes this idea of running headlong into the fear not for shock value, but with intention.
    Maria Fontoura, Rolling Stone, 26 Mar. 2021
  • Ben Splitter of the Wardens rushed headlong into Pool, jamming him up against the fence in a mighty collision of metal on metal.
    David Kelly, Los Angeles Times, 10 July 2023
  • Choose to run headlong into fierce battles against daunting foes or take advantage of the game’s stealth and combat systems to gain the upper hand.
    Erik Kain, Forbes, 10 June 2021
  • Eight run will be long gone, and Enfield, in his ninth season, will be left to prove that USC basketball hasn’t run headlong into its ceiling.
    Ryan Kartje, Los Angeles Times, 1 Apr. 2021
  • Freddy Adu, Blue Wire is diving headlong into the format.
    Shlomo Sprung, Forbes, 9 Mar. 2021
  • The conflicting appraisals of how the party is using its time come as Democrats have run headlong into the limits of running a 50-50 Senate with no votes to spare.
    Alan Fram, ajc, 12 Feb. 2022
  • The Padres dove headlong into stars for 2023, continuing to burn through massive contract ink by the barrel.
    Bryce Miller, San Diego Union-Tribune, 16 Sep. 2023
  • The good teams of the SEC run headlong into November with dreams of playing for a national championship.
    Joseph Goodman | Jgoodman@al.com, al, 29 Oct. 2022
  • Amid this kind of escalation, analysts note, the desire to avoid war often runs headlong into the satisfying rallying cry for a hard-hitting military response.
    Anna Mulrine Grobe, The Christian Science Monitor, 29 Jan. 2024
  • Sometimes rushing headlong through the decades, other times plodding turgidly through the minutes, the show has been destination television since 2016 — a sumptuous, low-stakes diversion in an era of bewildering turmoil.
    Sarah Lyall, New York Times, 27 Dec. 2023
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headlong

2 of 2 adjective
  • There won’t be any headlong charges for growth, Brown says.
    Time, 20 July 2023
  • But progress on the South China Sea question has been so slow as to make the trade talks look like a headlong dash.
    The Economist, 4 Nov. 2019
  • People schemed, finagled, wheedled, and conspired, caught up in the mad, headlong rush of the city.
    Adam Kirsch, The New Yorker, 27 Nov. 2023
  • Its data shows that GAAP earnings are still growing, though at a crawl compared with the headlong sprint over the last few years.
    Shawn Tully, Fortune, 31 Aug. 2019
  • The other murder takes place at the top of a staircase and the camera follows the headlong fall of the blood covered murder victim all the way down the stairs.
    Thr Staff, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 June 2017
  • Like much of the war, this denouement was a long time coming but unfolded in a headlong rush.
    Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times, 30 Aug. 2021
  • How could a headlong girl have foreseen her imprisonment in Max Gate, the gloomy house Hardy built?
    Lyndall Gordon, WSJ, 27 Oct. 2022
  • Its judgments are mostly sound, but for all its heft there’s something headlong about it.
    Thomas Mallon, The New Yorker, 30 May 2022
  • Crosby’s headlong crash into the boards Monday night was enough to cause some people to shudder and look away.
    The Washington Post, The Denver Post, 9 May 2017
  • And any time mood and conditions dictate, a push on the right pedal can serve up a headlong rush into the distant scenery.
    Kevin Smith, Car and Driver, 24 June 2023
  • Back in the 1970s, did angel sharks also adapt to the Canaries’ headlong efforts to redesign itself for tourists?
    Dag Goering, Smithsonian Magazine, 2 June 2023
  • On top of this, the signal sent by Biden’s headlong retreat had a devastating effect on Afghan morale from the top on down.
    The Editors, National Review, 15 Aug. 2021
  • And that raises the question of exactly how they — and, for that matter, the other headlong advances of A.I. — should be unleashed on the world.
    New York Times, 12 Apr. 2022
  • But OpenAI is now leading a headlong race, tech giants are axing their ethicists and, in any case, the horse may have already left the barn.
    Will Oremus, Washington Post, 4 Apr. 2023
  • Then came his abrupt turn, and a headlong descent into some of the darkest places in Georgia history.
    New York Times, 18 Feb. 2021
  • That headlong, try-everything ambition is all over the place here.
    Jon Dolan, Rolling Stone, 11 Feb. 2022
  • Yet not even Hart’s sheer, headlong Kevin Hart-ness can do anything for this loud, coarse, flaccid comedy.
    Mark Feeney, BostonGlobe.com, 25 Aug. 2022
  • His headlong pursuit of celebrity will rankle many people, and even those close to him acknowledge that the idea of it consumed him.
    David Howard, Popular Mechanics, 30 Aug. 2020
  • The about-face in New Jersey has reignited a political battle over the headlong rush to induce companies to build wind farms in the ocean.
    Patrick McGeehan, New York Times, 2 Nov. 2023
  • But the agencies cautioned against expecting outright Russian defeat, or even the kind of headlong retreat seen last month in the Kharkiv region in the east.
    Matthew Mpoke Bigg, New York Times, 20 Oct. 2022
  • How much of this headlong embrace of online learning sticks when everyone goes back to school is anyone’s guess.
    Jenny Anderson, Quartz, 5 Mar. 2020
  • Thus begins his black-market weapons practice and a headlong collision with bored-and-antsy Parker.
    Sam MacHkovech, Ars Technica, 7 July 2017
  • The context of their headlong infatuation is a blood feud that rages unabated in Verona.
    Los Angeles Times, 14 Apr. 2021
  • Unlike some rivals, Mr. Gindi avoided heavy debt and headlong growth.
    James R. Hagerty, WSJ, 31 Aug. 2018
  • From the outside in 2020, it wasn't known that the couple's motive for exiting the monarchy in such headlong fashion lay as deep as the harrowing dive Ms. Markle had undergone.
    Guy Martin, Forbes, 9 Mar. 2021
  • Our role is not to answer but to question, and to let our questioning run headlong, reckless, into the inarticulate.
    Stephen Marche, The Atlantic, 15 Sep. 2022
  • Only three weeks after that move, Wanda is in headlong strategic retreat.
    Alan Murray, Fortune, 10 July 2017
  • The tone of the Tenth Symphony is set in a huge, meandering opening movement, which acquires at times a hurtling headlong energy.
    Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 24 Mar. 2022
  • For the vast majority of Americans, though, life after the pandemic seemed to be a headlong rush to normalcy.
    J. Alexander Navarro, Scientific American, 26 Mar. 2021
  • And Peter and Lara are shot out the other side of their headlong romance, into their individual futures.
    Marion Winik, Washington Post, 21 July 2023

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