Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use gaffe in a sentence

20 example sentences · noun

Gaffe means a foolish and embarrassing error, especially one made in public; a social blunder; a breach of etiquette. Example: “Such jealousy ill becomes her; she can ill afford another gaffe like that.”

Examples of gaffe by meaning

nounA foolish and embarrassing error, especially one made in public; a social blunder; a breach of etiquette.

  • make a gaffe

More sentences with gaffe

  • Such jealousy ill becomes her; she can ill afford another gaffe like that.From the entry ill
  • This latest gaffe hurts the legislator’s reelection prospects still further.From the entry hurt
  • After his public gaffe, he was crucified in the media.From the entry crucify
  • He really has egg on his face after that gaffe.From the entry egg on one's face
  • It is the constant antidote to any temptation to laugh at Trump’s rants or gaffes.2026 January 21, Julian Borger, “Trump’s rambling Davos speech rehashes warped ideas of US supremacy”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry football
  • You might call this a sort of Kinsley gaffe on a national scale.2013 October 9, Max Fisher, The Washington Post. From the entry Kinsley gaffe
  • An entire book could be dedicated to 'Palinisms'—the gaffes made by the Republican vice-presidential candidate.2008 December 22, Byrony Gordon, “2008 in celebrity train wrecks”, in telegraph.co.uk, retrieved 20 Aug 2010. From the entry Palinism
  • The backhandedness of the compliment suddenly struck him, and he squeezed his eyes shut at the gaffe.2007, Graham Clews, Eboracum: The Village, →ISBN, page 98. From the entry backhandedness
  • If someone you've disemvowelled comes back and behaves, forgive and forget their earlier gaffes.2006 December, Douglas K. van Duyne, James A. Landay, Jason I. Hong, “Community Conference”, in The Design of Sites: Patterns for Creating…. From the entry disemvowel
  • A flub can be a slight cinematic slip-up or a major gaffe.1997, Garry Marshall, Lori Marshall, Wake Me When It′s Funny: How to Break into Show Business and Stay, page 280. From the entry flub
  • Everything was a dead cat—every policy, every interview, every gaffe.2019 November 19, Charlotte Lydia Riley, “Dear journalists: please stop calling everything a “dead cat””, in Prospect Magazine, archived…. From the entry dead cat
  • Yet, to his many detractors, Jeff Kennett was shallow and reckless with a propensity for silly and embarrassing gaffes.2006, Nick Economou, “Jeff Kennett: The Larrikin Metropolitan”, in Paul Strangio, Brian Costar, editors, The Victorian Premiers…. From the entry larrikin
  • Checkdigits flag transpositions and other data entry gaffes.1985 August, Wendy L. McKibbin, “Conventional Wisdom”, in PC World, volume 3, number 8, San Francisco: PC World Communications, →ISSN…. From the entry checkdigit
  • He shook his head mournfully, and frowned, as he contemplated this embarrassing gaffe of the black ewe of the family.1964, Eric Forbes-Boyd, In Crusader Greece: A Tour of the Castles of the Morea, page 117. From the entry black ewe
  • A person who is interested in you will be able to overlook a gaffe or mistext and will probably think it's kinda funny.2015 October 19, Julieanne Smolinski, “You Texted Something Stupid to Her. Now What?”, in GQ. From the entry mistext
  • The boys have made themselves very popular with the fans here, because a good, gingery gaffe is played all the time, regardless of the score.1909 March 29, Fred Tenney, “Giants Take Last Game from Dallas”, in New York Times. From the entry gingery
  • When a typical gaffe has him invading the Beagle and trying to rob Charles Darwin (David Tennant), he learns that his beloved “parrot” Polly is actually a dodo bird.2012 April 26, Tasha Robinson, “Film: Reviews: The Pirates! Band Of Misfits”, in The Onion AV Club. From the entry invade
  • When a typical gaffe has him invading the Beagle and trying to rob Charles Darwin (David Tennant), he learns that his beloved "parrot" Polly is actually a dodo bird.2012 April 26, Tasha Robinson, “The Pirates! Band of Misfits”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 15 Nov 2019. From the entry dodo bird
  • Give Thune credit for candor, or at least for a Kinsley gaffe: Intentionally or not, he made clear that the game was getting the best available walk-back and moving on.2018, David A. Graham, “Trump Can Never Go Too Far for Republicans”, in The Atlantic. From the entry Kinsley gaffe

Meaning of gaffe

  1. noun A foolish and embarrassing error, especially one made in public; a social blunder; a breach of etiquette.

Full definition of gaffe

Questions about gaffe in a sentence

How do you use gaffe in a sentence?
Gaffe is used as a noun. For example: “Such jealousy ill becomes her; she can ill afford another gaffe like that.”
What is a short sentence with gaffe?
“make a gaffe”
What does gaffe mean?
Gaffe means a foolish and embarrassing error, especially one made in public; a social blunder; a breach of etiquette.

Source and license

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