Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use gorilla in a sentence

31 example sentences · noun

Gorilla means an ape of the genus Gorilla; endemic to the forests of Central Africa and typified by superlative physical size and strength in relation to other primates. Example: “The wild gorilla was beating its chest.”

Examples of gorilla by meaning

nounAn ape of the genus Gorilla; endemic to the forests of Central Africa and typified by superlative physical size and...

  • “They are wicked people—neither white like you nor black like me, but covered with hair as is Bolgani, the gorilla.1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 129

nounA big and brutish man or a thug; a goon or ruffian.

  • "I'll do the old gorilla the justice to say that he is open-handed with money."1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, When the World Screamed
  • "I could have slugged this pair of amateur gorillas any hour of the day or night.1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 138

nounA powerful person or organization; a heavyweight or behemoth.

  • The two industry gorillas — IBM and AT&T — will get together to decide who will provide different communications services, Biddle stated.1977, Computerworld, volume 11, number 19, page 58

More sentences with gorilla

  • The wild gorilla was beating its chest.From the entry chest
  • We wore gorilla costumes to the party.From the entry costume
  • The chimpanzee and the gorilla have a common ancestor.From the entry common ancestor
  • Primates range from lemurs to gorillas.From the entry primate
  • A morning TV anchor in Oklahoma apologized a day after likening her black cohost to a gorilla.2019 August 27, Mallory Simon, “TV anchor apologizes after comparing black cohost to a gorilla”, in CNN. From the entry cohost
  • Plus, he was gorilla pimping them trying to make them buy his dope.2017, Lex, CheckMate - It's Your Move, page 47. From the entry gorilla pimp
  • A real pimp is a gentleman, but these are pimps in gorilla suits.2012, Pimpin' Ken, PIMPOLOGY: The 48 Laws of the Game, page 11. From the entry straight
  • Then how do you like having a cabinful of gorillas on the deck above you?2012, Jack Lasenby, Aunt Effie's Ark, →ISBN. From the entry cabinful
  • Pot bellies make a man look either oafish, or like a gorilla.2011, James W. Pennebaker, The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us, →ISBN. From the entry pot belly
  • Serundori says, emitting a special gruntlike gorilla greeting that miraculously stops Kabirizi in midcharge.2009 March 4, Jeffrey Gettleman, “In Congo, With Rebels Now at Bay, Calm Erupts”, in New York Times. From the entry gruntlike
  • The gorilla suit protects them from further harm by keeping adults at a distance.2007, David A. Crenshaw, Evocative Strategies in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, page 69. From the entry gorilla suit
  • He gorilla pimped Charlene, made him conform to his wants by beating him.2004, Tony Lindsay, Chasin' It, page 6. From the entry gorilla pimp
  • “That ghoully gorilla jumped out of the trees before we could eat any.”2001, James Gelsey, chapter 6, in Scooby-Doo and the Ghostly Gorilla (Scooby-Doo), New York, N.Y.: Little Apple Paperbacks, Scholastic…. From the entry ghoully
  • The author worked with two main study groups of gorilla in that region.1979, A. H. Harcourt, “Contrasts between Male Relationships in Wild Gorilla Groups,”, in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, volume 5…. From the entry blackback
  • Hoggatt, an immense man built like a gorilla, as a bodyguard and smoke-blower.1957, Forbes Parkhill, The Wildest of the West, page 188. From the entry smoke-blower
  • The movie nods to Robot Monster by giving the lobsterman a sidekick who is a gorilla with a space helmet.2016, Thomas Kent Miller, Mars in the Movies: A History. From the entry lobsterman
  • Aircraft are all nubivagant, gorillas are all nemorivagant, and a holiday in Snowdonia could be described as a montivagant weekend.2012, Mark Forsyth, The Horologian: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words, Berkley, →ISBN. From the entry nubivagant
  • Donning the gorilla suit — pretending to be aggressive, scary, and powerful — will usually keep others away.2007, David A. Crenshaw, Evocative Strategies in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, page 69. From the entry gorilla suit
  • Until recently, the gorilla had received a bad press, usually depicted as a fearsomely powerful and aggressive beast.1990, Michael Bright, The Dolittle Obsession, Robson Books, →ISBN, page 44. From the entry Gorillai
  • The cries of the gorilla proclaimed that it was in mortal combat with some other denizen of the fierce wood.1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as…. From the entry denizen
  • Gorillas (and other wildlife) frequent such bais, which are waterlogged and sunny, because of the sodium-rich sedges and asters that grow beneath the open sky.2012, David Quammen, Spillover, →ISBN, page 64. From the entry bai
  • When she couldn't repay the loan, he introduced Red to hardcore gorilla tactics and gangstered her into the fast sheets and the street game.2012, James Robinson, Gospel of the Game, page 185. From the entry fast sheet
  • And the ceiling is so low that the man dancing on the bar, in nothing but his skivvies, was hunched over like a gorilla.2005 March 13, Denny Lee, “Looking for Mr. Right Now”, in New York Times. From the entry skivvies
  • On the other hand, some believe that Hannon reached Senegal and the Cameroons, and that the gorillaï were actually gorillas (an opinion refuted by Heuvelmans).1982, International Society of Cryptozoology, Interdisciplinary Journal of the International Society of Cryptozoology, page 133. From the entry Gorillai
  • The gentlemanly gorilla and his ladylike gorillesses will do feats of health and strength that will be the marvel of the city.1916 October 29, “‘I’ll Drag 100 Girls with Up-Hill Pull,’ Says Gorilla […]”, in The Houston Chronicle, volume 16, number 16, Houston…. From the entry gorilless
  • If gorillas do fight, injuries can be very serious as these animals have long canine teeth and silverbacks pack a punch estimated at eight times stronger than a heavyweight boxer.2009, Mary Fitzpatrick, Lonely Planet East Africa, Lonely Planet, page 77. From the entry pack a punch
  • Then a biologist named Morris goodman published a few papers, based also on immunological comparisons, in which he noted strong similarities among the blood protiens of chimpanzees, gorillas, and humans.2001, David Quammen, The Boilerplate Rhino: Nature in the Eye of the Beholder, →ISBN. From the entry red ape

Meaning of gorilla

  1. noun An ape of the genus Gorilla; endemic to the forests of Central Africa and typified by superlative physical size and strength in relation to other primates.
  2. noun A big and brutish man or a thug; a goon or ruffian.
  3. noun A powerful person or organization; a heavyweight or behemoth.

Full definition of gorilla

Questions about gorilla in a sentence

How do you use gorilla in a sentence?
Gorilla is used as a noun. For example: “The wild gorilla was beating its chest.”
What is a short sentence with gorilla?
“Primates range from lemurs to gorillas.”
What does gorilla mean?
Gorilla means an ape of the genus Gorilla; endemic to the forests of Central Africa and typified by superlative physical size and strength in relation to other primates.

Source and license

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