Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use lonely in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective

Lonely means unhappy due to feeling isolated from contact with other people. Example: “Once upon a time a little princess lived with her mother in a lonely castle.”

Examples of lonely by meaning

adjectiveUnhappy due to feeling isolated from contact with other people.

  • LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities; New York gets god-awful cold in the winter but there’s a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in some streets.1957 September 5, Jack Kerouac, chapter 13, in On the Road, London: Penguin Books, published 1976, →ISBN, part 1, page 86
  • For mariners leaving the port after lonely nights on the high seas, the delights of the B52 Night Club and Stallion Pub lie a stumble away.2013 June 8, “The new masters and commanders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 52

More sentences with lonely

  • Once upon a time a little princess lived with her mother in a lonely castle.From the entry -ed
  • The pine barrens are a site lonely enough to suit any hermit.From the entry barren
  • The lonely puppy began to whimper as soon as we left the room.From the entry whimper
  • He would have been lonely but for the comradeships of the various clubs to which he belonged.From the entry comradeships
  • The snarly dog scared me for years until I learned it was very friendly and just lonely.From the entry snarly
  • If she's so all-fire lonely, why doesn't she ever leave her dorm room and actually meet people?From the entry all-fire
  • I feel lonely at times, but then somebody phones, or calls round, and I cheer up again.From the entry at times
  • The lonely millionaire reflected bitterly on the unpurchasability of true love.From the entry unpurchasability
  • The cosmicity of the empty, blank view from the telescope made him feel lonely.From the entry cosmicity
  • Since her pet passed away, she has been moping around the house, feeling lonely and sad.From the entry mope around
  • Since her pet passed away, she has been moping about the house, feeling lonely and sad.From the entry mope about
  • It was a lonely, dissociative time in my life, when I stayed holed up in my apartment for weeks on end.From the entry dissociative
  • Jake had gone from the center of a teeming throng of people to the solitudinous emptiness of his lonely house.From the entry solitudinous
  • I've got the lonely man's blues.From the entry blues
  • And apps like Lex and sites like Reddit still provide a space for lonely hearts-style posts.2023 August 7, Emilie Lavinia, “Date-me-docs are the new way to match and we don't hate it”, in Cosmopolitan, New York, N.Y.: Hearst…. From the entry date-me doc
  • The overwhelming sense is of a lonely, disappointed man in desperate need of a hug.2022 November 16, Fiona Sturges, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry review – being Chandler Bing”, in The Guardian. From the entry pain in the backside
  • This lonely stretch of California, forgotten shoreline, sand streaked with black.2020, Emily St. John Mandel, The Glass Hotel, Picador (2021), page 246. From the entry Pismo Beach
  • Lonely Horse came out guns-a-blazing with the track "Devil in the White House."2017 November 9, Gabe Vodicka, “Songs of Protest, Songs of Hope”, in Salt Lake City Weekly, page 16. From the entry shots fired
  • Helena thought of the lonely girl in her flower-print dress at the churchyard.2016, Rachel Hickman, One Silver Summer, Old Barn Books, published 2017, →ISBN, page 197. From the entry teadress
  • She was happy for Noah and Gillian, but seeing them together just made her feel lonelier.2015, Kate James, chapter 13, in The Truth about Hope (Harlequin Heartwarming), Don Mills, Ont.: Harlequin Enterprises, →ISBN, page 192. From the entry fifth wheel
  • These lonely thunderboxes had no protection from the weather, not even a hessian screen.2013, Frederick Rennie From, “The German Barracks”, in That’s Enough, Freddy From!, Houston, Tex.: Strategic Book Publishing and Rights…. From the entry thunderbox
  • Lonely double dating, with pen, paper, and empty wine glasses . . .2013, Heather Maria Ramirez, All the Fireflies in France, →ISBN, page 5. From the entry ride or die
  • That means a holiday traditionally celebrated with family could be a very lonely affair.2011 November 22, Alyce Gilligan, “Happy Friendsgiving”, in Relevant, →ISSN, archived from the original on 07 Feb 2013. From the entry Friendsgiving
  • When I don't hear from you, My days feel long and lonely.2009, Elsa T. Aguries, The Pearl Within, →ISBN, page 141. From the entry hear
  • When they entered the courtroom Lawna noticed her father sitting lonely in the backbench.2009, Ian J. Findlay, Saunie Brown, Women: the New Doggs, →ISBN, page 38. From the entry backbench
  • 'Twould be a dreary, lonely spring at Carlyle without shortsome Jane to add color to her days.2009, Liz Curtis Higgs, Fair Is the Rose. From the entry shortsome
  • In Lvshun, Liaoning, I was feeling lonely when I was told a friend of mine lived there.2009 April, 王麒诚 [Wang Qicheng], 漫画旅行中国 [China Tour Guide: Cartoons], Beijing: China Intercontinental Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page 22. From the entry Lvshun
  • Looking sad and lonely, the tree turned slowly until she caught her reflection in the nearby stream.2009, Gina Reynolds, “Section 2”, in The Rescue of the Impossible Treeture, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 13. From the entry treeture
  • But they seemed lonely, too, without the company of their pimp and the rest of his string.2006, Steve Niles, Jeff Mariotte, 30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead, page 307. From the entry string
  • Back then, at eighteen, in her humble bed-sit, in Dublin's 'flatland', she was lonely.2005, Esme Conway, Into Angels, page 18. From the entry flatland
  • Writing Perl in the valley would be a lot lonelier without his hard work.2005, Scott Walters, Perl 6 Now: The Core Ideas Illustrated with Perl 5 (Expert’s Voice in Open Source), Berkeley, Calif.: Apress, →ISBN…. From the entry pumpking
  • A bus stop cuts a lonely figure against the landscape of Dongsha Island.2005 July 29, Yu-Tzu Chiu, “Chen travels to the disputed Pratas Islands”, in Taipei Times, archived from the original on 13 Jan 2006. From the entry Chichin
  • As if your hair-splitting, shifting-sands postathons are the lonely voice of reason in an uncomprehending universe.2004, Hawkster, “Memorial day 2004”, in alt.radio.talk.dr-laura (Usenet). From the entry postathon
  • I do not want to be alone, or pretend that I am not lonely.2004 August 28, Hope Donahue, “Nip and tuck and nip again”, in The Guardian. From the entry tied in knots
  • Truth be told, I've been a touch lonely here with no one to talk to.2004, Intelligent Systems, translated by Nintendo of America, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Nintendo, GameCube, level/area: Petalburg. From the entry a touch
  • It'll be a lonely old arthur for me tonight as usual.2002, Gilda O'Neill, The Sins Of Their Fathers (Eastend Trilogy; 1). From the entry -ette
  • Lonely atrium mutants, for example, have no distinguishable ventricles, and overlooped embryos have abnormally positioned heart chambers.1997, The Journal of NIH Research, page 5. From the entry overloop
  • Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.1994, Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, →ISBN. From the entry speck

Meaning of lonely

  1. adjective Unhappy due to feeling isolated from contact with other people.
  2. adjective Unfrequented by people; desolate.
  3. adjective Without companions; solitary.

Full definition of lonely

Questions about lonely in a sentence

How do you use lonely in a sentence?
Lonely is used as an adjective. For example: “Once upon a time a little princess lived with her mother in a lonely castle.”
What is a short sentence with lonely?
“I've got the lonely man's blues.”
What does lonely mean?
Lonely means unhappy due to feeling isolated from contact with other people.

Source and license

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