Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use bribe in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Bribe means something (usually money) given in exchange for influence or as an inducement to breaking the law. Example: “She was accused of trying to bribe the jury into making false statements.”

Examples of bribe by meaning

nounSomething (usually money) given in exchange for influence or as an inducement to breaking the law.

  • The bribes I took did not influence me to become evil.2024 June 17, @InternetHippo, Twitter, archived from the original on 29 Jun 2024

nounThat which seduces; seduction; allurement.

  • Remy, this was a bribe!1974, George Fox, Mario Puzo, Earthquake

verbTo give a bribe to; specifically, to ask a person to do something against their original will, in exchange for some...

  • She was accused of trying to bribe the jury into making false statements.

verbTo gain by a bribe; to induce as by a bribe.

  • to bribe somebody's compliance

More sentences with bribe

  • The tennis player was accused of taking bribes to throw the match.From the entry throw
  • The more money the better, because there is always that dodgy politician or corrupt official to bribe.From the entry dodgy
  • The ruthless businessman thought little of bribing or eliminating his competitors.From the entry think little of
  • Bankman-Fried received confirmation that the accounts were unfrozen, the rest of the bribe money was paid.2023 March 28, Matthew Goldstein, “Sam Bankman-Fried Is Charged With Foreign Bribery”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry unfreeze
  • Please wipe that look out of your eyes, it's bribing me to doubt myself.2008, Adele, First Love. From the entry wipe
  • The bribe caused the inflation of the social capital defined as blat.2005, Adam Czarnota, Martin Krygier, Wojciech Sadurski, Rethinking the Rule of Law After Communism, page 334. From the entry blat
  • But I won't be threatened or bribed or guilted into giving up something that's important to me.1995, Nora Roberts, True Betrayals. From the entry guilt
  • No longer will you have to bribe a friend or member of the family to plant sit.1984, California Garden - Volumes 75-77, page 13. From the entry plant sit
  • You eat a gudgeon a day, and you think you bribe God with gudgeon.1912, Fyodor Dostoevsky, “Why is such a Man Alive?”, in Constance Garnett, transl., The Brothers Karamazov […], New York, N.Y.: The…. From the entry gudgeon
  • In South Africa such requests are so common that bribes for driving offences are known as “cold drink money”.2023 April 20, “How to ask for a bribe without asking for a bribe”, in The Economist. From the entry cold drink money
  • But Greek tax officials are rumored to be notoriously easy to bribe with a fakelaki (small envelope) of cash.2013, Michael G. Pento, The Coming Bond Market Collapse. From the entry fakelaki
  • And if some guy is dipping into the funds or taking bribes or slowballing things, those people should be exposed.2010, J. DAVID BUTLER, THE WATER BALL: A story of faith and enduring love, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN. From the entry slowball
  • This wasn't the same temp she'd bribed away yesterday.2008, Denise Hamilton, The Last Embrace, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 137. From the entry galumph
  • When they demanded Oddy's licence, they were also demanding a bribe and a free battered sav too from Oddy.2008, George Papaellinas, The Trip: An Odyssey, →ISBN, page 88. From the entry battered sav
  • Scrushy has been on presentencing release since a federal jury in Montgomery last year convicted him of bribing former Gov.2007 April 15, “Did Anyone Ask About a Yacht?”, in New York Times. From the entry presentencing
  • Like that well-meaning mom, parents employ Milquetoast speech whenever they whine, complain, plead, entreat, entice, bribe, and explain themselves persuasively.2007, John Rosemond, “Command, Compel, Confirm”, in Mary McNeil, editor, Parenting by the Book: Biblical Wisdom for Raising Your Child…. From the entry milquetoast
  • “Did you bribe someone?” “No,” I told him.2001, Benny Hinn, He Touched Me: An Autobiography. From the entry gruff
  • In the amagents' telling, police regularly accept bribes to overlook the crimes or drop the charges against the amagents.1998, Crime and Conflict (issues 13-22, page 26). From the entry amagent
  • A forced churchgoer has no religion, a terrified churchgoer has no Christianity, a bribed churchgoer has no morals.1985, Joy Davidman, Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments, →ISBN, page 58. From the entry churchgoer
  • A native of Kwangsi himself, Wang may have played upon their common provincial ties; or he may have bribed them.[1975, Edward J. M. Rhoads, “Middle Years of the Post-Boxer Decade, II: Revolution”, in China's Republican Revolution: The Case of…. From the entry Fangcheng
  • He bribes his women in order to be let alone.1914, The Unpopular Review, Henry Holt and Company, page 304. From the entry overconcentrated
  • Do you chaps mean to say you didn't make Rabbits-Eggs drunk and bribe him to rock King's rooms?1908, Rudyard Kipling, Stalky & Co.. From the entry rock
  • Probetting lobbyists offered bribes for votes.2025, Joanne Reitano, Charles Evans Hughes and the Dawning of Modern America, page 58. From the entry probetting
  • Once I got an inebriated Rules official to utter the words sand trap and tee box, by bribing him with a free beer.2012, Bill Pennington, On Par: The Everyday Golfer's Survival Guide, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 21. From the entry rules official
  • The requisite intent is proved by showing a quid pro quo—an expectation of a favorable official act in return for the bribe.2006, John Cibinic, Jr.; Ralph C. Nash; James F. Nagle, Administration of Government Contracts, page 84. From the entry quid pro quo
  • In Petrograd they were in great danger but had many friends in high places, and with money for bribes they avoided arrest.2006 April 1, Phillip Alder, “On a Day Made for Tricks, Lots of Ways to Get Them All”, in New York Times, retrieved 18 May 2015. From the entry friends in high places
  • He pandered to this, keeping a tin of funsize chocolate bars to hand and using them shamelessly and almost always successfully as bribes.2001, Sarah Harrison, The Grass Memorial, Flame, Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN, page 229. From the entry funsize
  • The word is that every petty havaldar, sub-inspector and police inspector, licensing clerk and petty official has to be bribed before he'll do his duty.1997, Kiran Nagarkar, Cuckold, HarperCollins, published 2013, page 252. From the entry havaldar
  • Though there was a moment of anxiety, a generous bribe persuaded the gatekeep to overlook their expired passports and they rode into Calais.1987, Maggie Osborne, Chase the Heart, page 278. From the entry gatekeep
  • In their excitement and gratitude the Athenians noted neither his attempt to suborn a bribe nor his delay in seeking public safety.1981, Donald Kagan, “Sacrilege and Departure”, in The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition, Ithaca, N.Y.; London: Cornell…. From the entry suborn
  • For years he was in a position where a bribe, the turn of a crooked deal, a "queer" fight decision might mean thousands to him.1929 January 7, Manning Vaughn, “Putting 'em on the pan”, in Milwuakee Journal, retrieved 03 Sep 2012, page 5. From the entry square shooter
  • They bribed the waiters to lend them their costumes, and went themselves and served the déjeuner, and did the most atrocious things!1913 March 15, Henry C[ottrell] Rowland, “The Sultana”, in The Saturday Evening Post, volume 185, number 37, Philadelphia, Pa.: The Curtis…. From the entry déjeuner
  • Investigation subsequently showed that one of her employés had been bribed to obtain Somnos from a druggist who should be designated as disreputable.1907, JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, page 2197. From the entry employé
  • Large factories use “pushers” who cajole, threaten, wine, dine, and bribe those in whose hands rests the power to allocate needed resources, machinery, raw materials, or spare parts.2017, Michael Rywkin, Soviet Society Today, page 35. From the entry pusher
  • Grace needed no bribes to get right in on the fun of our ceremony, and immediately adopted a faux-serious British accent to give a Hogwartsian dignity to the proceedings.2013, Launa Schweizer, Home Away: A Year of Misapprehensions, Transformations, and Rosé at Lunch, →ISBN, page 259. From the entry Hogwartsian
  • Taxi drivers outside the bus station said that it was possible to enter the city only by paying a US 70-cent bribe per passenger per checkpoint to police.2008, “Attack in Jiashi Drastically Changes Security Environment”, in 3. From the entry Jiashi

Meaning of bribe

  1. noun Something (usually money) given in exchange for influence or as an inducement to breaking the law.
  2. noun The act of offering or paying such a payment: an act of bribery.
  3. noun That which seduces; seduction; allurement.

Full definition of bribe

Questions about bribe in a sentence

How do you use bribe in a sentence?
Bribe is used as a noun and verb. For example: “She was accused of trying to bribe the jury into making false statements.”
What is a short sentence with bribe?
“to bribe somebody's compliance”
What does bribe mean?
Bribe means something (usually money) given in exchange for influence or as an inducement to breaking the law.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bribe (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 bribe in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/bribe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.