Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use ladder in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Ladder means a frame, usually portable, of wood, metal, or rope, used for ascent and descent, consisting of two side pieces to which are fastened rungs (cross strips or rounds acting as steps). Example: “Oh damn it, I've laddered my tights!”

Examples of ladder by meaning

nounA frame, usually portable, of wood, metal, or rope, used for ascent and descent, consisting of two side pieces to which...

  • Ladders are heavy and unwieldy.2009, Albert Jackson, David Day, Popular Mechanics Complete Home How-To, rev. edition, New York, N.Y.: Hearst Books, Sterling Publishing...
  • And why wouldn't I just turn around, not take a chance on the bad luck of walking under a ladder?2014, Linda O. Johnston, Lost under a Ladder, Woodbury, Minn.: Midnight Ink, Llewellyn Worldwide, →ISBN

nounA series of stages by which one progresses to a better position.

  • Newcastle had won both their previous fixtures in 2011 but were terribly disappointing at Broadhall Way against opponents 73 places below them in the footballing ladder.2011 January 8, Paul Fletcher, “Stevenage 3 – 1 Newcastle”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 05 Mar 2016

nounThe hierarchy or ranking system within an organization, such as the corporate ladder.

  • Many publicly held companies do have good working conditions, but they often employ mostly high-wage workers or offer different levels of working conditions and benefits to management employees than to workers at the bottom of the ladder.2010, Jody Heymann, Magda Barrera, Profit at the Bottom of the Ladder: Creating Value by Investing in Your Workforce, Boston, Mass....

nounA length of unravelled fabric in a knitted garment, especially in nylon stockings; a run.

  • You've got a huge ladder in your stockings.2008, Åsa Larsson, translated by Marlaine Delargy, The Black Path, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Dell, →ISBN

nounA sequence of moves following a zigzag pattern and ultimately leading to the capture of the attacked stones.

  • This is finding out about the ladder, which is called that because of the steplike shape that the defending stones are forced into.2003, Peter Shotwell, Go! More Than a Game, Boston, Mass.: Tuttle Publishing, →ISBN

verbTo arrange or form into a shape of a ladder.

  • Age fell into his face as he laddered his brow the way Uncle Morgan's brow laddered into lines when he was pissed off about something.1984, Stephen King, Peter Straub, The Talisman, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press/G. P. Putnam's Sons, →ISBN
  • He laddered the plant kingdom downward from classes to orders, genera, species, and varieties.1999, Lisbet Koerner, Linnaeus: Nature and Nation, Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 15
  • He laddered his fingers under his chin.2001, Frankie Y. Bailey, A Dead Man's Honor, Johnson City, Tenn.: Silver Dagger Mysteries, The Overmountain Press, →ISBN, page 70

verbTo ascend (a building, a wall, etc.) using a ladder.

  • A good working knowledge of the ladder parts, how they work, their capacities, and proper usage are a must before anyone is sent out to ladder a building.1998, John Norman, Fire Officer's Handbook of Tactics, 2nd edition, Saddle Brook, N.J.: Fire Engineering, →ISBN, page 164

verbOf a knitted garment: to develop a ladder as a result of a broken thread.

  • Oh damn it, I've laddered my tights!
  • That's why they ladder.1994, Judith Clarke, “Tights”, in Friend of My Heart, St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press, →ISBN, pages 35–36
  • She caught her mother's eye and said quickly, 'I wondered why your cardigan was laddering.' She looked around the kitchen.2004, Susan Sallis, The Pumpkin Coach, London: Corgi Books, →ISBN, page 106

More sentences with ladder

  • The very idea of climbing the ladder brings me out in a sweat.From the entry very
  • The ladder that slipped left a skid mark across the tile floor.From the entry skid mark
  • Without a diploma, he relies on spiff alone to climb the corporate ladder.From the entry spiff
  • I came up the ladder carefully, holding the bucket in my right hand.From the entry come up
  • When someone has bought their first house, they are said to have got on the ladder.From the entry on the ladder
  • The ladder holdoff enabled him to clean the gutters easily without the ladder's weight damaging them.From the entry holdoff
  • Can you pass up this box to the guy on the ladder?From the entry pass up
  • Quick! Don't bother with ladders; just nerd pole up to me!From the entry nerd pole
  • How am I to reach the top shelf without a ladder?From the entry be to
  • It is said that things like black cats, walking under ladders, or breaking mirrors give bad luck.From the entry it is said
  • I can see that the ladder won't reach.From the entry that
  • The ladder was leaning against the wall.From the entry against
  • I carefully walked the ladder along the wall.From the entry walk
  • In Japanese society, Koreans are viewed as being of a lower rung on the social ladder compared to Yamato people.From the entry Yamato
  • I know someone with a strange phobia of ladders.From the entry phobia
  • The ladder is based on the even sidewalk for stability.From the entry based
  • Hold the ladder steady while I go up.From the entry steady
  • Where’s you get this ladder from? It’s frigged!From the entry frig
  • He hesitated about climbing such a small, rickety ladder.From the entry rickety
  • Jeremy has the kind of jasm a junior exec needs to reach the top of the ladder in the corporate world.From the entry jasm
  • For quotations using this term, see Citations:witch's ladder.From the entry witch's ladder
  • That guy is such a noob! Why would he use a nerd pole to get up there? Doesn't he know how to use ladders?From the entry nerd pole
  • “I’m very proud that I’ve worked on every rung of the ladder,” Ashley says.2023 June 15, Kat Moon, “Ashley Park’s Main Character Energy From ‘Joy Ride’ Is Here To Stay: ‘I’m Treating Myself Like A Lead Now’”, in…. From the entry rung
  • Is there an escalatory ladder in cyber, the same as with weapons of mass destruction?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
  • Likewise, you can challenge them or run past them towards the nearby ladder.2022 August 26, GamerGuides.com, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 – Strategy Guide, Gamer Guides, →ISBN. From the entry deaggro
  • Time Travel’s a cinch compared to fooling the greats of magic all the way up Magicianry’s ladder.2018, A. Reneé Olesiewicz, The Wonderer: A Darby, Baird & Co. Novel, Wisconsin: TypeWritten Smitten Publishing, →ISBN, page 224. From the entry magicianry
  • If the work can be completed comfortably using ladders, a scaffold need not be considered.2015, Phil Hughes, Ed Ferrett, “Workplace Hazards and Risk Control”, in International Health and Safety at Work: For the NEBOSH…. From the entry scaffold

Meaning of ladder

  1. noun A frame, usually portable, of wood, metal, or rope, used for ascent and descent, consisting of two side pieces to which are fastened rungs (cross strips or rounds acting as steps).
  2. noun A series of stages by which one progresses to a better position.
  3. noun The hierarchy or ranking system within an organization, such as the corporate ladder.

Full definition of ladder

Questions about ladder in a sentence

How do you use ladder in a sentence?
Ladder is used as a noun and verb. For example: “Oh damn it, I've laddered my tights!”
What is a short sentence with ladder?
“That's why they ladder.”
What does ladder mean?
Ladder means a frame, usually portable, of wood, metal, or rope, used for ascent and descent, consisting of two side pieces to which are fastened rungs (cross strips or rounds acting as steps).

Source and license

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