Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use detour in a sentence

28 example sentences · noun, verb

Detour means a diversion or deviation from one's original route. Example: “The road took a brief detour around the large rock formation, then went straight on.”

Examples of detour by meaning

nounA diversion or deviation from one's original route.

  • On the third day I made a detour westward to avoid the country of the Band-lu, as I did not care to be detained by a meeting with To-jo.1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp....
  • Of course the Johnston swings around to engage the entire flotilla, and, despite taking several more hits, Johnston successfully forces away the first two ships, which leads to the entire squadron taking a detour to avoid the single pugnacious ship.2019 February 27, Drachinifel, 29:50 from the start, in The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?, archived from the original on 03 Nov...

verbTo make a detour.

  • Petrelis detoured away from southern activities to visit Chicago and help draw attention to lesbian, gay and AIDS issues during the Illinois primary March 16.1988 April 9, Elizabeth Pincus, “Freedom Ride Supports Southern Les/Gay Visibility”, in Gay Community News, page 3

More sentences with detour

  • The road took a brief detour around the large rock formation, then went straight on.From the entry around
  • Clearance on these freeway overpasses is limited, so big trucks must detour.From the entry clearance
  • The detour meant that we had to go on a twenty-mile Cook's tour to get home.From the entry Cook's tour
  • Mind the new detour signs. If you don't mind, you'll end up running into bears in the forest.From the entry mind
  • The dead ends and detours were many.2011, Upton Uxbridge Underwood, “Pioneers of Pogonology”, in Poets Ranked by Beard Weight, page 94. From the entry pogonology
  • At grocery stores she detours around the banana displays.2008, “Bananaphobia: The yellow fruit has no ap-peel”, in People. From the entry bananaphobia
  • That summer the Clipper detoured north on its way to Norway so that cadets could be initiated as bluenoses.2005, Stephen J. Curley, Aggies By The Sea: Texas A & M University At Galveston, page 213. From the entry bluenose
  • In other words, a business can throw up a huge detour sign in the way of the government.2001, Diane Kennedy, Loop-Holes of the Rich: How the Rich Legally Make More Money & Pay Less Tax, Warner Books,, →ISBN, page 70. From the entry throw up
  • This midcall rapport detour saved the day.1997, Linda Richardson, Stop Telling, Start Selling: How to Use Customer-Focused Dialogue to Close Sales. From the entry midcall
  • A line of ants heads across the table, detouring around the bottle of cachaça that is now empty.1984, Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by Helen R. Lane, The War of the End of the World, Folio Society, published 2012, page 222. From the entry cachaça
  • You're a comfort station on a back-street detour.1970 November 29, Ann Landers [pseudonym; Esther Pauline “Eppie” Lederer], “Wake up, smell the coffee”, in The News & Observer, volume CC…. From the entry wake up and smell the coffee
  • There are detours and incomprehensible delays.2024 April 22, Adrian Searle, “Venice Biennale 2024 review – everything everywhere all at once”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry longueur
  • His right hand detoured to cover his left shoulder and I kicked him in his mid right thigh, finding, it appeared, his sciatic nerve.2022, Percival Everett, Dr. No, Influx Press (2023), page 142. From the entry sciatic nerve
  • To her, my everyday life is like a bag of superbounce balls that's been dropped just as a steeplechase detours through our dining room.2021, Ashley Bristowe, My Own Blood: A Memoir, page 178. From the entry superbounce
  • The back route I favor involves a long stretch on Highway 74 and brings me close enough to Lumberton for a barbeque detour.2011, Kathy Reichs, Spider Bones: A Novel, →ISBN, page 57. From the entry que
  • Perhaps he was there right now, in Ouagadougou, taking a last detour to revisit friends before passing on to eternity, wherever that is.2010, Helon Habila, Oil on Water, AudioGO (2011), page 250. From the entry Ouagadougou
  • There are lots of pauses and little detours, hitchings-up of their smocks, inspection of the soles of their feet, some rather overdone limping.1997, Lawrence Norfolk, The Pope's Rhinoceros. From the entry overdone
  • But even an erroneous or honest but misguided reading of test results can mean a year-long detour for an otherwise school-ready child.1993, Carol A. Ryan, Paula A. Sline, Barbara J. Lagowski, How to Get the Best Public School Education for Your Child, page 69. From the entry school-ready
  • The animation, with big-eyed character designs from the illustrator Mona Chalabi, at times literalizes Rumi’s anxiety and at others allows the story to take absurd detours.2025 April 15, Esther Zuckerman, “‘#1 Happy Family USA’ Is a Bittersweet Coming-of-Age Sitcom”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The…. From the entry big-eyed
  • "As to what all that has to do with the price of eggs, as they say, I'm not sure, which is why I called for a detour."2007, Barry Head, Swansong: A Message of Love and Farewell. From the entry price of eggs
  • This nurse looked like something out of a racy-nursewear catalogue, like somebody that had to detour blocks out of her way to avoid construction sites at lunchtime.1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 895. From the entry nursewear
  • Other students make wide detours to avoid the humiliation and fear of being chased and attacked by the humongous numbers of bees in front of Atkinson.1964 May 29, The Colonnade. From the entry humongous
  • Very often we made detours from the main caravan, rejoining it at a given spot, and this spirit of "wanderlust" brought us into a nice quandary one fine day.1908, Agnes Herbert, “Death of ‘The Baron’”, in Two Dianas in Somaliland: The Record of a Shooting Trip, London: John Lane, The Bodley…. From the entry wanderlust
  • On one occasion the Road Runners found themselves without a club car to race the following Sunday on Ecorse Road where the state police detoured traffic and supervised drag racing.2008, Fred Thomas, Car Club Memories: Personal Stories from Three Dynamic Decades of Cruisin', Competition, and Cool Cars, AuthorHouse…. From the entry club car
  • The road then descends into the valley of the Karakax River, where a detour cuts through to Khotan at the southern extremity of the Taklamakhan Desert on the Silk Route.2004, Gyurme Dorje, Footprint Tibet (Footprint Travel Guides), 3rd edition, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 397. From the entry Karakax

Meaning of detour

  1. noun A diversion or deviation from one's original route.
  2. noun A temporary alternative route available to motorists away from the usual route due to a closure for repairs, dealing with an accident, or some event rendering the usual route unusable.
  3. verb To make a detour.

Full definition of detour

Questions about detour in a sentence

How do you use detour in a sentence?
Detour is used as a noun and verb. For example: “The road took a brief detour around the large rock formation, then went straight on.”
What is a short sentence with detour?
“There are detours and incomprehensible delays.”
What does detour mean?
Detour means a diversion or deviation from one's original route.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: detour (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.

Last updated:

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