Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use escalation in a sentence

21 example sentences · noun

Escalation means the act of escalating. Example: “J.F.K. "quarantined" Cuba rather than blockading it to avoid needless escalation of the conflict.”

Examples of escalation by meaning

nounAn increase or rise, especially to counteract a perceived discrepancy.

  • Thousands of violent videos are still available on the internet, according to Alexander, who claims they lead to an escalation in offline tensions between rival gangs.2012 April 19, Josh Halliday, “Free speech haven or lawless cesspool – can the internet be civilised?”, in the Guardian

nounThe reassignment of a difficult problem to someone whose job is dedicated to handling such cases.

  • The manager ensures that the escalation team generates a continuous stream of root cause analysis exercises and the subsequent corrective actions.2003, Garry Schultz, The Customer Care and Contact Center Handbook, →ISBN, page 229
  • Resolving escalations tends to require large amounts of time and energy from the support engineer working on an escalation and from the manager driving it.2016, Francoise Tourniaire, The Art of Support, →ISBN, page 154

More sentences with escalation

  • J.F.K. "quarantined" Cuba rather than blockading it to avoid needless escalation of the conflict.From the entry quarantine
  • And they, too, risk escalation into all-out war that pulls in the United States.2026 January 17, Nicholas Kristof, “How War With China Begins”, in The New York Times (Opinion section), New York, N.Y.: The New York…. From the entry all-out
  • The entire year can be summarized in a single word: escalation.2022 September 12, Jeremy C. Young, “A Lot More Censorship Is Coming to a School Near You”, in The Daily Beast, archived from the original…. From the entry censorious
  • This move was an escalation of a battle that has been brewing between airlines and GDSs.2012, Kaihan Krippendorff, “Today's Business Revolution”, in Outthink the Competition: How a New Generation of Strategists Sees Options…. From the entry gds
  • This bullying continuum illustrates the progressive escalation from harmless banter to bullying and criminal behaviours.2007, Evelyn M. Field, Bully Blocking, page 17. From the entry banter
  • Adam Schiff, a Democratic senator from California, called it a “very dangerous escalation and a prelude to potential conflict”.2025 December 11, Joseph Gedeon, quoting Adam Schiff, “US lawmakers condemn seizure of Venezuelan oil tanker: ‘Trump is sleepwalking us…. From the entry prelude
  • Fleming doesn't like the comparison with nuclear deterrence but says that Russia is indeed conscious of escalation risk.2023 May 28, Roula Khalaf, “Lunch with the FT: Jeremy Fleming”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd.…. From the entry cyber
  • Escalation is the film’s nuclear energy source.2018 July 25, A. A. Dowd, “Fallout may be the Most Breathlessly Intense Mission: Impossible Adventure Yet”, in The A.V. Club, archived…. From the entry reckless
  • Escalation is the film's nuclear energy source.2018 July 25, A. A. Dowd, “Fallout may be the Most Breathlessly Intense Mission: Impossible Adventure Yet”, in The A.V. Club, archived…. From the entry good sense
  • The so-called titushky contributed greatly to the escalation of violence.2015, Serhy Yekelchyk, The Conflict in Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know, New York: Oxford University Press, page 109. From the entry titushky
  • All it does is allow severity escalation.2001 August 19, Chris Waters, “Bug#108416: Format of short description should be mandated”, in linux.debian.policy (Usenet), archived from…. From the entry unaestheticness
  • Finally, the greater the proportion of nondemocracies among crisis actors, the more likely it becomes that escalation will occur.2000, John A. Vasquez, What Do We Know about War?, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 47. From the entry crisis actor
  • So far, soldiers on the front lines said they had seen little evidence of escalation beyond this largely slow-moving war of attrition.2021 December 6, Michael Schwirtz, “On Ukrainian Front, Grinding War and Weary Anticipation of Invasion”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry war of attrition
  • Cyberchondria (compucondria) is the unfounded escalation of concerns about common symptomology based on a review of search results and literature online (13).2020 June 12, Christina Nikolova Grupcheva, Mladena Nikolaeva Radeva, Dimitar Ivanov Grupchev, “How to run an efficient eye care practice…. From the entry compucondria
  • True, but who began this escalation?2017 January 3, Patrick J. Buchanan, “How to Avoid a New Cold War”, in The American Conservative. From the entry Cold War II
  • An “expeditious cessation of hostilities” is essential to “stabilise European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war and re-establish strategic stability with Russia”, the document says.2025 December 6, “US security strategy urges ‘resistance’ to Europe and shrugs off Russian threat”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial…. From the entry expeditious
  • Instead, a terrific escalation of corporate rivalries was combined with a deflated power medium and an exceedingly inflated influence medium, particularly in the area of purely technical expertise.1976, Jan J. Loubser, Explorations in General Theory in Social Science, page 602. From the entry deflated
  • In the long run, the facile tu quoque arguments, such as those offered by Massu on the Alleg case, can only lead to an endless escalation of horror and degradation.1977, Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace, New York: Review Books, published 2006, page 205. From the entry tu quoque

Meaning of escalation

  1. noun The act of escalating.
  2. noun An increase or rise, especially to counteract a perceived discrepancy.
  3. noun A deliberate or premeditated increase in the violence or geographic scope of a conflict.

Full definition of escalation

Questions about escalation in a sentence

How do you use escalation in a sentence?
Escalation is used as a noun. For example: “J.F.K. "quarantined" Cuba rather than blockading it to avoid needless escalation of the conflict.”
What is a short sentence with escalation?
“True, but who began this escalation?”
What does escalation mean?
Escalation means the act of escalating.

Source and license

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