How to Use shoehorn in a Sentence

shoehorn

1 of 2 noun

• In the closet was a cane-size shoehorn topped with a silver dog’s head, Tom Wolfe-style.
  — Anthony Flint, BostonGlobe.com, 6 June 2018
• Match your belt to your shoehorn, which should dangle from a gauge in your earlobe.
  — Colin Stokes, The New Yorker, 20 Apr. 2020
• But the weapons in our bedroom were limited to a shoehorn, a flattening iron and a stack of hardcover books.
  — John Kelly, Washington Post, 1 July 2018
• But what makes this shoehorn special is its length—30 inches—which allows its 6-foot 3-inch owner to put on the snuggest of loafers without sitting or bending down.
  — Clifton Leaf, Fortune, 22 Dec. 2017
• Students used shoehorns and grapefruit knives to detach screens and squirm out windows, or stumbled out a basement exit into the stabbing cold.
  — New York Times, 13 Apr. 2018
• The Polynesian-themed bash shoehorns tropical drinks, Tiki art, surf rock, go-go dancers and an assorted of things for sale into one flea market.
  — John Petkovic, cleveland.com, 14 July 2017
• An image or phrase finds you, pleases you with its wit or vividness, shoehorns open your evolving vision of the fictive world, and before that change gets fully processed, here comes another.
  — George Saunders, The New Yorker, 3 Mar. 2017
• In between, the show shoehorns social media into as many segments as possible, with sometimes-cringeworthy results.
  — Maeve McDermott, USA TODAY, 11 Oct. 2017
• But this documentary feature is fascinating and infuriating in unequal parts, the latter far outweighing the former, since Mr. Jarecki’s instrument is a shoehorn.
  — Joe Morgenstern, WSJ, 28 June 2018
• In the closet was a cane-size shoehorn topped with a silver dog’s head, Tom Wolfe-style.
  — Anthony Flint, BostonGlobe.com, 6 June 2018
• Match your belt to your shoehorn, which should dangle from a gauge in your earlobe.
  — Colin Stokes, The New Yorker, 20 Apr. 2020
• But the weapons in our bedroom were limited to a shoehorn, a flattening iron and a stack of hardcover books.
  — John Kelly, Washington Post, 1 July 2018
• But what makes this shoehorn special is its length—30 inches—which allows its 6-foot 3-inch owner to put on the snuggest of loafers without sitting or bending down.
  — Clifton Leaf, Fortune, 22 Dec. 2017
• Students used shoehorns and grapefruit knives to detach screens and squirm out windows, or stumbled out a basement exit into the stabbing cold.
  — New York Times, 13 Apr. 2018
• The Polynesian-themed bash shoehorns tropical drinks, Tiki art, surf rock, go-go dancers and an assorted of things for sale into one flea market.
  — John Petkovic, cleveland.com, 14 July 2017
• An image or phrase finds you, pleases you with its wit or vividness, shoehorns open your evolving vision of the fictive world, and before that change gets fully processed, here comes another.
  — George Saunders, The New Yorker, 3 Mar. 2017
• In between, the show shoehorns social media into as many segments as possible, with sometimes-cringeworthy results.
  — Maeve McDermott, USA TODAY, 11 Oct. 2017
• But this documentary feature is fascinating and infuriating in unequal parts, the latter far outweighing the former, since Mr. Jarecki’s instrument is a shoehorn.
  — Joe Morgenstern, WSJ, 28 June 2018

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shoehorn

2 of 2 verb

• A parking garage has been shoehorned between the buildings.
• I don't know how they managed to shoehorn everyone into that little room.
• She's trying to shoehorn a year's worth of classes into a single semester.
• There are a few things that feel culled from other movies and shoehorned in here to the film’s detriment.
  — Cady Drell, Marie Claire, 27 July 2018
• Smith has been shoehorned into a strange role in his first 65 NBA games.
  — Michael Shapiro, Chron, 15 Mar. 2023
• Lue, who brought him to the Cavs, looked to shoehorn him into the rotation.
  — Joe Vardon, cleveland.com, 16 Feb. 2018
• This was the opposite of hacky sitcoms, where jokes are shoehorned in.
  — Stuart Miller, Washington Post, 30 May 2023
• Kurds in the region often speak in terms of the hundred-year history since their area was shoehorned into the modern state of Iraq by the British.
  — Seth J. Frantzman, National Review, 26 Sep. 2017
• These quick glimpses of Claire and Frank in the 20th century feel shoehorned into an episode where the high-stakes action takes place with Jamie in the 18th century.
  — Julie Kosin, Harper's BAZAAR, 18 Sep. 2017
• Trying to shoehorn some of that into the college space has created a lot of this problem.
  — Nathan Fenno, latimes.com, 23 Mar. 2018
• How gracefully does the series manage to shoehorn them in?
  — Kathryn Vanarendonk, Vulture, 9 Dec. 2021
• At Memphis, Penny Hardaway, one of the greatest point guards of all time, initially tried to shoehorn Bates in as the team’s point guard to start the season.
  — Adam Zagoria, Forbes, 29 June 2022
• What’s coming is a lot of products that embrace the story of Avatar, and not shoehorning in the famous mouse anywhere, at least not yet.
  — Richard Tribou, OrlandoSentinel.com, 27 Apr. 2017
• Wider doorways aren’t just a way to shoehorn new furniture into your home.
  — Kristin Luna, Washington Post, 6 Feb. 2023
• So the world of Schumann and Schubert always felt shoehorned into that framework.
  — Tim Greiving, Variety, 4 Apr. 2023
• Those moments, though essentially shoehorned in, are crucial for the film to work.
  — Katie Walsh, Detroit Free Press, 5 Apr. 2018
• Not since 2011 had organizers shoehorned three such climbs into the same stage.
  — Andrew Dampf, The Seattle Times, 9 July 2017
• Usually in these kinds of shows the famous songs are shoehorned into a book that doesn’t sweat the dramatic details.
  — Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 11 June 2023
• And with some games, touch control continues to make more sense than trying to shoehorn in controller support.
  — Brad Moon, Forbes, 26 Dec. 2021
• Many of the quarter-million people shoehorned into Dadaab, a cluster of camps on the Kenyan border with Somalia, have lived there since the early 1990s.
  — Ryan Lenora Brown, The Christian Science Monitor, 9 Oct. 2017
• Such is the desire of the media to shoehorn this tragedy into a predetermined racial narrative.
  — Jason L. Riley, WSJ, 31 Jan. 2023
• One year ago, when the pandemic shut down offices and schools, many working parents were forced to shoehorn their working lives and the school lives of their children into one place: their home.
  — Anna Bahney, CNN, 24 Mar. 2021
• These are not fat, waddling little teddy-birds shoehorned into the story.
  — Tom Philip, GQ, 10 Oct. 2017
• This episode concludes with a three-way makeout sesh between Max, Audrey, and Aki, which the writers had to shoehorn in before the season hiatus.
  — Kyndall Cunningham, Vulture, 12 Aug. 2021
• San Francisco has the third smallest lot sizes in the United States — averaging 2,700 square feet — which doesn’t allow much room to shoehorn four units.
  — J.k. Dineen, San Francisco Chronicle, 28 Feb. 2021
• There’s no happy answer to this, but by choosing not to shoehorn footage of Fisher into the next film, Lucasfilm has probably made the right call.
  — Emma Stefansky, HWD, 15 Apr. 2017
• Even with a field this small, players will have some trouble figuring out how to shoehorn Hot Rod Charlie into their exotics.
  — Guy Martin, Forbes, 1 Nov. 2021
• In fact, the most annoying thing about the new Cowboy Bebop is its need to shoehorn Vicious and Julia into every single episode.
  — Christian Holub, EW.com, 15 Nov. 2021
• Often, the Bard’s plays are shoehorned into a new time and place with little regard for coherent dramaturgy.
  — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 2 Feb. 2024
• Flying is rife with frustrations, particularly as airlines shrink the space between seats to shoehorn in more passengers.
  — Megan Cerullo, CBS News, 31 Oct. 2023

Last Updated: 5 Sep 2024