Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use frustrate in a sentence

13 example sentences · verb, adjective

Frustrate means to disappoint or defeat; to vex by depriving of something expected or desired. Example: “It frustrates me to do all this work and then lose it all.”

Examples of frustrate by meaning

verbTo disappoint or defeat; to vex by depriving of something expected or desired.

  • It frustrates me to do all this work and then lose it all.

verbTo hinder or thwart.

  • My clumsy fingers frustrate my typing efforts.
  • According to this view, treating China like an adversary will only frustrate our own long-term goals.2019 October 9, Farhad Manjoo, “Dealing With China Isn’t Worth the Moral Cost”, in New York Times

verbTo cause stress or annoyance.

  • This test frustrates me because if I fail, it'll destroy my grade.

More sentences with frustrate

  • The obstructionists didn't have their own plan, but they counted, successfully, on delay to frustrate any alternative.2020 June 23, John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 395. From the entry obstructionist
  • And when that happens, the medium frustrates even more with its fleetingness.2016 August 12, Hannah Jane Parkinson, “Instagram Stories: who cares about your commute or cleansing routine?”, in The Guardian. From the entry story
  • But Fate, it appeared, had arranged beforehand to frustrate this Sybaritic dream.1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 155. From the entry sybaritic
  • As such, the Growlery again frustrates what Doublass sees as a peculiarly American obsession with pigeonholing things in terms of race.2006, Sarah Luria, Capital Speculations: Writing and Building Washington, →ISBN, page 92. From the entry growlery
  • But it struggled to ever quite get going, with the first five episodes dragging their feet in a way that began to frustrate.2022 December 27, Alexi Duggins, Hollie Richardson, Kate Abbott, “The Rings of Power to Conversations With Friends: 2022’s TV letdowns”…. From the entry drag one's feet
  • This is the bit that frustrates antedaters: earlier evidence may be rejected if it doesn't seem to clearly and completely fit the earliest given sense.2017, Kory Stamper, Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, page 195. From the entry antedater
  • Instead, travellers are directed to the respective assembly points; this facilitates any last-minute changes in platform arrangements and also frustrates any would-be queue-jumpers.1962 April, J. N. Faulkner, “Summer Saturday at Waterloo”, in Modern Railways, page 263. From the entry last-minute
  • Nigeria had scored only three goals in three games, all against Australia, but they had also kept two clean sheets and their defensive organisation continued to frustrate England immensely.2023 August 7, Suzanne Wrack, “England beat Nigeria on penalties to reach Women’s World Cup quarter-finals”, in The Guardian. From the entry clean sheet
  • My experiences in education, network consulting, service provider support, and certification have shown me that there is a common thread that frustrates people in all of these arenas.2001, William R. Parkhurst, Cisco BGP-4 Command and Configuration Handbook, Cisco Press, →ISBN. From the entry common thread

Meaning of frustrate

  1. verb To disappoint or defeat; to vex by depriving of something expected or desired.
  2. verb To hinder or thwart.
  3. verb To cause stress or annoyance.

Full definition of frustrate

Questions about frustrate in a sentence

How do you use frustrate in a sentence?
Frustrate is used as a verb and adjective. For example: “It frustrates me to do all this work and then lose it all.”
What is a short sentence with frustrate?
“My clumsy fingers frustrate my typing efforts.”
What does frustrate mean?
Frustrate means to disappoint or defeat; to vex by depriving of something expected or desired.

Source and license

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