How to Use oaf in a Sentence

oaf

noun
  • For us straight dudes, however, being big and hairy means getting thought of as an ape—a big, dumb, smelly oaf.
    Dan Savage, Chicago Reader, 7 Feb. 2018
  • The other is Trump himself, an uninformed and undisciplined oaf who likes to shoot from the hip.
    Jeet Heer, New Republic, 10 Aug. 2017
  • Nowhere in Hansen’s pages is the impulsive, autocratic oaf seen by many of Castro’s critics.
    Steve Donoghue, The Christian Science Monitor, 12 Aug. 2019
  • But, regardless of which party wins on Thursday, criticizing the oaf in the White House will continue to be an applause line.
    John Cassidy, The New Yorker, 6 June 2017
  • Rob Gronkowski only played eight games, but Kelce—who played all sixteen—averaged more yards per game than New England’s lovable oaf.
    Clay Skipper, GQ, 7 Sep. 2017
  • Yes, main character Skarin is basically a lumbering oaf without a sneaky bone in his body.
    Chris Kohler, WIRED, 28 Mar. 2008
  • Gustavo, dismissed as an oaf, seems no match for Lucia Villanueva (Emily Rios), a crime lord’s daughter.
    Hal Boedeker, OrlandoSentinel.com, 1 July 2017
  • Though comic buffoons and yokels are scattered through a number of Shakespeare’s tragedies, Lear’s universe is relentlessly bleak, and the Fool, despite his jingling, is neither oaf nor jester.
    Cynthia Ozick, New York Times, 25 Oct. 2017
  • No one who touched the ball in the opposing penalty area as often as Kane was as good at not losing possession, showing that a target man doesn’t have to be a lumbering oaf whose primary skill is measuring in at over 6-foot-3.
    Jonathan Clegg, WSJ, 18 June 2018
  • Sung Kang-ho as The Weird, in particular, delivers a tremendous performance, equal parts clown, trickster, and something more, sliding between oaf and mystery man with unsettling ease.
    Joshua Rivera, GQ, 1 July 2017
  • In Fitzpatrick, Doyle has created an extraordinarily creepy antagonist: a bully who plays dumb but always gets under the hero’s skin, a clumsy oaf who nevertheless can disappear like a cat into the darkness.
    J. Robert Lennon, New York Times, 31 Oct. 2017

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