How to Use vassal in a Sentence

vassal

noun

• Russia can choose to be an ally of the West or a vassal of China.
  — Radek Sikorski, Foreign Affairs, 20 June 2023
• In feudal France, vassals pledged loyalty to their lords with a smooch on the lips.
  — Michael Birnbaum, BostonGlobe.com, 15 May 2020
• The answer is to be seen in Belarus, now largely a Russian vassal state.
  — Jason Fields, The Week, 22 Mar. 2022
• Now that country is pretty much viewed as a vassal state of Russia.
  — CBS News, 25 June 2023
• For the fixers, enablers, and vassals who surround Donald Trump, the rewards of his friendship are not worth the risks.
  — Fintan O’Toole, The New York Review of Books, 27 June 2024
• Soon, Nabataea and Rome would form a partnership, with Nabataea paying taxes to Rome as a vassal state.
  — Jeremy Hillpot, Discover Magazine, 18 Apr. 2023
• Kill or be killed, win the throne or serve as vassal, sleep under your own roof or perish in the forest: No show has a darker heart.
  — Tom Gliatto, Peoplemag, 24 July 2023
• Tikal’s king was killed and replaced by an outsider, and the kingdom became something like a vassal state to the foreign state.
  — Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 7 Feb. 2019
• China has gained a Russian vassal and is now the clear leader of the autocratic world.
  — Radek Sikorski, Foreign Affairs, 20 June 2023
• Once a Chinese tributary, the kingdom became a vassal state of Japan in 1609.
  — Amelia Lester, The New York Review of Books, 17 Dec. 2020
• The principality to which the town belonged would spend the next 250 years as a vassal state to the Golden Horde but not without more conflict and death.
  — Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 11 Sep. 2019
• Throughout the 1950s, the Kremlin shared its new rifles with like-minded states and ordered its Warsaw Pact vassals to produce them.
  — C. J. Chivers, WIRED, 1 Nov. 2010
• The first was alipin namamahay, the slave who had his or her own house and family and, like a vassal, was expected to help the master during harvests, raids, trade, and feasts.
  — Vicente Rafael, The Atlantic, 31 May 2017
• Rather than turn Qatar into a subservient vassal state, the feud with Saudi Arabia has split the Gulf in a way that looks increasingly permanent.
  — Alan Crawford, Bloomberg.com, 13 Sep. 2017
• The agreement essentially reduced Iran to a vassal state.
  — Christian Schneider, National Review, 21 Dec. 2023
• The vivid description of how the pharaoh and his army killed dozens of wild bulls sent not only a message of his prowess and strength, but also a subtle warning that the new king would put down any vassal state that tried to rebel.
  — National Geographic, 17 Sep. 2020
• If vassals failed to meet the high taxes demanded of them, kachellas were dispatched to plunder and loot villages and enslave anyone old enough to work in payment.
  — Martha Anne Toll, Washington Post, 30 Mar. 2023
• Back in ye olden dayes, rich people collected masses of land (usually through force) and then forced vassals (that'd be us) to slog away for them and hand over money for the privilege.
  — refinery29.com, 18 May 2018
• Basically, this would turn Russia into a colony of China and Putin into Xi’s vassal.
  — Wal Van Lierop, Forbes, 19 Mar. 2022
• The southern kingdom of Judah avoided Israel’s fate by becoming a vassal state.
  — National Geographic, 17 Jan. 2020
• Jacob Rees-Mogg, who once likened a status-quo transition to being a vassal state, said Britain had rolled over without even getting its tummy tickled.
  — The Economist, 22 Mar. 2018
• Prigozhin left Rostov to the cheers of a seemingly supportive crowd (something that will not have passed unnoticed in the Kremlin) and has been exiled to nearby Belarus, a Russian vassal state.
  — The Editors, National Review, 26 June 2023
• In Russia, China has been welcomed as an economic partner that is an alternative to the West, even amid fears among some that Moscow could become a vassal.
  — Paul Sonne, New York Times, 15 June 2023
• In the days leading up to the invasion, Lukashenko invited Russia to stage its troops and equipment on Belarusian soil in a move that seemed to formalize the country’s status as a Russian vassal state.
  — Yasmeen Serhan, Time, 19 Oct. 2022
• That will require moving up the ranks, from mercenary to vassal to eventually becoming a king (or queen) yourself.
  — Jason Bennett, Arkansas Online, 7 Nov. 2022
• The great and growing imbalance in the relationship has induced analysts to speak of Russia as China’s vassal.
  — Stephen Kotkin, Foreign Affairs, 18 Apr. 2024
• Devoted to her faith as well as her duties as a vassal, a wife and a daughter of a disgraced family line, Mariko’s journey involves figuring out her purpose and how to live it out on her own terms.
  — Tracy Brown, Los Angeles Times, 25 Feb. 2024
• Saudi Arabia’s founder, Ibn Saud, came to power through conquest and alliances rather than being selected by European powers to rule a vassal state in their name.
  — Taylor Luck, The Christian Science Monitor, 5 Mar. 2021
• Another salient difference is that the United States is, rather than a fascist vassal, an advanced democracy.
  — Zack Beauchamp, Vox, 6 Sep. 2018
• This is what Putin’s Russia has been reduced to: a feudal system in which the supreme leader hands out pieces of property to his vassals to manage or delegates functions to them at his subjects’ expense.
  — Andrei Kolesnikov, Foreign Affairs, 22 Aug. 2023

Last Updated: 14 Nov 2024