Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use bleat in a sentence

20 example sentences · noun, verb

Bleat means the characteristic cry of a sheep or a goat. Example: “In the year 1633, the Bridget Nuns, near Xanthus, behaved like sheep, jumping about and bleating continuously.”

Examples of bleat by meaning

verbOf a sheep, goat, or calf: to make its characteristic cry; of a human, to mimic this sound.

  • In the year 1633, the Bridget Nuns, near Xanthus, behaved like sheep, jumping about and bleating continuously.1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 99

More sentences with bleat

  • That I should find it weird to see a 41-year-old influencer bleating about her “bleph”.2025 October 11, Jo Ellison, “The forever 35 face of fashion”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd.…. From the entry odd one out
  • Fiddlers and drummers played, boothmen bawled out their wares, animals for sale bleated or lowed or clucked.2010, Anna Kendall, Crossing Over. From the entry boothman
  • I let them bombard me, grateful for the noisy bleating of their cupboard love.2006, Hilary Lloyd, A Necessary Killing, UKA Press, →ISBN, page 30. From the entry cupboard love
  • He started bleating to me this morning aboot being stretched on this hippy stalk.1998, Irvine Welsh, Filth, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 140. From the entry operator
  • Lead him home with a sugan the way you’d lead a bleating goat.1916, James Joyce, chapter V, in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, New York, N.Y.: B[enjamin] W. Huebsch, →OCLC. From the entry sugan
  • There was a ragged noise of bleating from the flock penned in a corner of the yard.1912, David Herbert Lawrence, chapter 12, in The Trespasser. From the entry ragged
  • Or behear ye the sheep, to the husbanding rams how they bleat to the shade!1911, Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, Brother Copas. From the entry behear
  • If he was to blither, it was only fair that she should bleat back.1903, Jerome K[lapka] Jerome, chapter I, in Tea-table Talk, London: Hutchinson & Co. […], →OCLC, page 20. From the entry blither
  • Except for the animals lowing and bleating and wandering ownerless on the slushy paths there was no one about.1988, Bapsi Sidhwa, Ice-Candy Man, Daunt Books (2016), page 218. From the entry ownerless
  • They fills their bellies wi’ ther ’oney,” bleated Granny blastingly.1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia…. From the entry 'deed
  • They fills their bellies wi' ther 'oney," bleated Granny blastingly.1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia…. From the entry blastingly
  • As things now stand, Brexit is a pointless gesture, a politics of headlines in which sovereignty is performed by bleating world-beating absurdities.2021, David Edgerton, “The one good thing to come out of Brexit: a bonfire of national illusions”, in The Guardian. From the entry perform
  • She's trying to meet my every need, waiting on me in ways that would make my mum bleat, 'What did your last slave die of?'2010, Luisa Plaja, Swapped by a Kiss, page 102. From the entry what did your last slave die of
  • Both men seemed to enjoy these contests, always laced with the tension caused by constant government bleating about the ABC's left-wing bias.2008, Wayne Errington, Peter Van Onselen, John Winston Howard: The Definitive Biography, page 317. From the entry bleating
  • The lambless ewe immediately smelled each of the triplets, and promptly refused all of them, still bleating loudly and persistently for her lost one.1983, Helena Dettmer, Horace: a study in structure. From the entry lambless
  • She came skipping to me just now, clapping her little hands and bleating about how very, very happy she was, dear Mrs Travers.1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XVII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC. From the entry conk
  • His anger broke and he cursed quackingly, cursed in bleats, cursed until he drooled and had to apply his sleeve to his mouth.1950, George C Appell, The Tin Trumpet of China. From the entry quackingly
  • A big band of bleating sheep on the way to the loading pens at the station blocked her way where she would have crossed the street to Symes's house.1912, Caroline Lockhart, The Lady Doc, Philadelphia, P.A.; London: J. B. Lippincott Company, page 329. From the entry wooler
  • They browsed with noses in the frost, and from all around came the tinkle of tiny bells on the curly-horned rams, and an endless variety of bleats.1910, Zane Grey, The Heritage of the Desert. From the entry browse

Meaning of bleat

  1. noun The characteristic cry of a sheep or a goat.
  2. verb Of a sheep, goat, or calf: to make its characteristic cry; of a human, to mimic this sound.
  3. verb Of a person, to complain.

Full definition of bleat

Questions about bleat in a sentence

How do you use bleat in a sentence?
Bleat is used as a noun and verb. For example: “In the year 1633, the Bridget Nuns, near Xanthus, behaved like sheep, jumping about and bleating continuously.”
What is a short sentence with bleat?
“They fills their bellies wi' ther 'oney," bleated Granny blastingly.”
What does bleat mean?
Bleat means the characteristic cry of a sheep or a goat.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bleat (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use bleat in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/bleat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.