Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use enlist in a sentence

19 example sentences · verb, noun

Enlist means to enter on a list; to enroll; to register. Example: “The army wants potential soldiers to enlist.”

Examples of enlist by meaning

verbTo voluntarily join a cause or organization, especially military service.

  • The army wants potential soldiers to enlist.

verbTo recruit the aid or membership of others.

  • We enlisted fifty new members.

verbTo secure; to obtain.

  • They enlisted the government's support.

More sentences with enlist

  • Uncle Sam needs brave men and women to enlist in the Army.From the entry Uncle Sam
  • We should emphasise that the militariat enlists both military and civilians members.2004, Democracy and Development. From the entry militariat
  • To pursué higher studies for a year without enlisting as an investigator thus became respectable.1911 February 23, The Nation, volume 92, number 2382, page 186. From the entry sheepwise
  • Another possibility is to enlist a bacteriophage, a kind of virus, to hunt down and kill harmful bacteria for us.2019, Bill Bryson, The Body: A Guide for Occupants, Black Swan (2020), page 54. From the entry bacteriophage
  • Societies heroicize soldiers during war to encourage young men to enlist and their families to support the war effort.2018, Eugene Edward Beiriger, World War I: A Historical Exploration of Literature, →ISBN, page 16. From the entry heroicize
  • As far as Rostam could tell, the only thing needed to enlist in the Legion was a heartbeat.2015, LT Wolf, The World King - Book I: The Reckoning. From the entry byspel
  • We forthwith applied for permission to enlist in the RAF.2010, Martin W. Bowman, “Dam Buster – Dudley Heal”, in Bombs Away!: Dramatic First-hand Accounts of British and Commonwealth Bomber…. From the entry forthwith
  • Even some fellow Conservatives maintain that Sir William has shown a dangerously authoritarian streak since enlisting as a general in Mrs.1988 June 10, Howell Raines, “Journal: In Tory Country, Someone to Watch Over TV”, in New York Times, retrieved 16 Jan 2012. From the entry bring to heel
  • There are also times when a player needs to enlist the aid of the backstep while on the baseline.1985, Rick Elstein, Mary Carillo Bowden, Rick Elstein's Tennis Kinetics: With Martina Navratilova, page 130. From the entry backstep
  • Much of the projected savings would come from enlisting Medicaid recipients in "managed care" programs instead of the current open-ended system.1984 February 5, Richard A. Knox, “Full-scale Medicaid Overhaul Proposed”, in Boston Globe, retrieved 28 Nov 2013. From the entry managed care
  • It is, in effect, a multipartisan approach to enlist support for qualified women candidates for local, county and state offices.1973 March 25, Joan Cook, “Feminist Paper for Women Is a Success”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 10 Oct 2023. From the entry multipartisan
  • A consensus developed that those individuals who believed in this type of activism would pursue it independently, while enlisting help from interested members.1988 February 14, Richard Tremblay, “A Boat With A Sail”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 30, page 5. From the entry pass the hat
  • They also have tried to enlist support from the National Cattlemen's Association, on grounds this open-door policy could lead to easier entry for foreign beef.1984 June 18, Bill Keller, “Llama Owners' Lobby is Set to Fight Imports”, in New York Times, retrieved 15 Jan 2016. From the entry open-door policy
  • Through processes such as “reinforcement learning with human feedback,” which enlists people to grade AI outputs against a rubric, models are guided toward responses that exemplify desired traits.2026 March 17, Jasmine Sun, “The Human Skill That Eludes AI”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic…. From the entry rubric
  • However, if your budget is too tight to afford these services, then you might want to consider enlisting a friend or family member to mystery shop for you.2007, James Stephenson, Ultimate Small Business Marketing Guide. From the entry mystery shop
  • I have tried, as I hinted, to enlist the co-operation of other capitalists, but experience has taught me that any appeal is futile that does not impinge directly upon cupidity.1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad. From the entry hint

Meaning of enlist

  1. verb To enter on a list; to enroll; to register.
  2. verb To voluntarily join a cause or organization, especially military service.
  3. verb To recruit the aid or membership of others.

Full definition of enlist

Questions about enlist in a sentence

How do you use enlist in a sentence?
Enlist is used as a verb and noun. For example: “The army wants potential soldiers to enlist.”
What is a short sentence with enlist?
“They enlisted the government's support.”
What does enlist mean?
Enlist means to enter on a list; to enroll; to register.

Source and license

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