How to Use unruly in a Sentence

unruly

adjective
  • But the hair in his armpits is too long and unruly now.
    Hurmat Kazmi, The Atlantic, 23 Nov. 2021
  • This unruly, badass look is for only the coolest of cool.
    Ann Wang, Seventeen, 9 Nov. 2022
  • Get unruly hairs in line with this soft-hold wax stick.
    Tatjana Freund, ELLE, 15 Dec. 2022
  • The more flesh, the more dangerous and unruly the body became.
    Virgie Tovar, refinery29.com, 29 Mar. 2022
  • Not so this time in the unruly wake of the U.S. retreat from Kabul in August 2021.
    Time, 3 Dec. 2022
  • Made Pretty, to tells us how to refresh the area of the home that tends to become the most unruly — the closet.
    Ryan Conner, Dallas News, 19 Jan. 2023
  • As in Melville, worlds collide amid the unruly frictions of men on the margins.
    Julian Lucas, The New Yorker, 17 Oct. 2022
  • Their personas seem derived from the unruly and edgy rockstars of the past.
    Alphonse Pierre, Pitchfork, 4 Nov. 2024
  • Of course, these tweezers don’t just work on blood-sucking bugs and unruly brows.
    Katie Jackson, Travel + Leisure, 9 Sep. 2023
  • When faced with harsh weather or unruly terrain, clothing should be the thing that saves the day—not spoils it.
    Lauren Matison, Condé Nast Traveler, 7 Dec. 2022
  • If the pile becomes unruly, two smaller heaps work just as well.
    Allison Duncan, WSJ, 22 Mar. 2022
  • Last year, back-to-back shootings left two dead and brought unruly crowds to the streets prompting a state of emergency.
    USA TODAY, 4 Mar. 2024
  • This technique is most often used to shape up an unruly shrub.
    Beth Botts, chicagotribune.com, 6 Feb. 2022
  • The limbs erupted from the seat and desktop, in all directions — strange, unruly, alive.
    New York Times, 13 Jan. 2022
  • Real life is merely scenery and footage, and the people who happen to get in the way of it, unruly extras.
    Judith Martin, The Mercury News, 19 Oct. 2024
  • Martha, again in the mid-1990s, ably demonstrating the only proper way to prune an unruly tree.
    Stephanie Zacharek, TIME, 29 Oct. 2024
  • For a long time, Martha Stewart kept the lid on the more unruly details of her personal life sealed tight.
    Ryan Coleman, EW.com, 30 Oct. 2024
  • The curtains blew in all night, and the surf was incessant, unruly, and somehow soothing.
    Peter Heller, Condé Nast Traveler, 2 Jan. 2024
  • Genetic changes to the DNA within cells may start this unruly process.
    Corey Whelan, Verywell Health, 21 Oct. 2024
  • Your unruly subjects will bow down to you as the queen in Alice in Wonderland.
    Mariah Thomas, Good Housekeeping, 8 June 2022
  • With his head in his hands, fingers scraping through the thick, unruly brown locks, and breath shuddering from the tight line of his lips.
    Lizz Schumer, Peoplemag, 26 Mar. 2024
  • Step back and look at the shrub and remove any unruly shoots back to a bud or lateral branch that take away from the plant's overall shape.
    Mary Marlowe Leverette, Southern Living, 12 Feb. 2025
  • Ole Miss, a game that was marred by unruly fan behavior in the waning minutes.
    Evan Hilbert, USA TODAY, 24 Oct. 2021
  • The sound of the bucket is unruly, unsteady, but still very rhythmic, almost like a heartbeat.
    New York Times, 2 June 2021
  • At the time, the eastern half of the country viewed the Arizona Territory as unruly and not Anglo enough.
    Kaely Monahan, The Arizona Republic, 14 Feb. 2022
  • This is the second Delta flight in as many days that had to be diverted due to an unruly passenger.
    Jordan Freiman, CBS News, 15 June 2021
  • Disneyland is not the only park to struggle with unruly crowds.
    Los Angeles Times, 28 Dec. 2022
  • Plenty of fans were ejected from the game for unruly behavior.
    Irina Ivanova, Fortune, 1 Mar. 2024
  • And so will the unruly demands and desires that come with growing up, torqued by successes and failures.
    Louisa Thomas, The New Yorker, 9 Mar. 2025
  • The eight-episode Season 1 of The Franchise followed the crew of an unloved franchise movie fighting for their place in a savage and unruly cinematic universe.
    Nellie Andreeva, Deadline, 10 Mar. 2025

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