Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use makeshift in a sentence

28 example sentences · noun, adjective

Makeshift means a temporary (usually insubstantial) substitution. Example: “They used the ledge and a few branches for a makeshift shelter.”

Examples of makeshift by meaning

nounA temporary (usually insubstantial) substitution.

  • Hoboism cannot be cured or prevented by makeshifts or by local measures and efforts, although community interest naturally is vital in dealing with a problem that comes home to every community.1923, Benjamin C. Marsh, “For the Community to Do”, in The World tomorrow, volume 6

adjectiveMade to work or suffice; improvised; substituted.

  • They used the ledge and a few branches for a makeshift shelter.
  • Hodgson was able to introduce Arsenal teenager Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain for his debut late on as this makeshift England line-up closed out a victory that was solid for the most part without ever threatening to be spectacular.2012 May 26, Phil McNulty, “Norway 0-1 England”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 25 Jun 2021

More sentences with makeshift

  • They'll never find us in this makeshift hideout we've got in the woods.From the entry hideout
  • The rioters had erected a makeshift barricade and were pelting the police with rocks from behind it.From the entry rioter
  • He managed to throw together a makeshift shelter using branches and leaves.From the entry throw together
  • Don't let flimsy, makeshift guards "hazardize" your machines or spoil appearance and working efficiency.1948, Safety Engineering, page 55. From the entry hazardize
  • On a makeshift bed in the corner was an old woman looking very sick.1913, anonymous author, Boy Scouts and What They Do/Object of Scouting. From the entry patrol
  • Today, she shows me into the unused disabled toilet, a makeshift home for the “nappy bank” they are now operating.2013 March 19, Jackie Long, “Easterhouse: harsh reality behind benefits 'revolution'”, in Channel4. From the entry nappy bank
  • All the fringe people thought it was such a good house, ingenious in fact, and erected similar makeshift housing for themselves.2006, Alexis Wright, Carpentaria, Giramondo, published 2012, page 20. From the entry fringe
  • And so makeshift and second-best have continued.1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 38. From the entry second best
  • His mind accounted for one useless article after another in a vain search for any kind of makeshift tool.1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries. From the entry account for
  • About a mile from the cemetery entrance, hundreds lined the streets, holding up umbrellas and makeshift tents to protect themselves from the unrelenting sun.2020 June 10, Vivian Ho, “'He'll change the world': George Floyd's family pays emotional tribute as crowds flock to funeral”, in The…. From the entry rest in power
  • He left the makeshift absinthiana on the counter and took the drink to the kitchen table, holding a paring knife in his left hand.2016, Jonathan Moore, The Poison Artist, →ISBN. From the entry absinthiana
  • Alberti's equilibra, which he uses first for the levelling of water and later for the weighing of small objects, is really a makeshift archipendulum.2010, Kim Williams, Lionel March, Stephen R. Wassell, The Mathematical Works of Leon Battista Alberti, page 107. From the entry archipendulum
  • About the makeshift knives, one law-enforcement source said, “They found a four-incher and a six-incher, in his cell, under his legal papers.”2007 May 10, Denise Buffa, “JAIL-KNIFE RAP VS. NIXZMARY DAD”, in New York Post. From the entry incher
  • Once a body is brought back to the makeshift morgue at the airport in Gulfport, Mississippi, a forensic pathologist assigns a chip to it.2005 September 23, Siobhan Morrissey, “Identifying the Dead: the Electronic Toe Tag”, in Time, retrieved 19 Dec 2015. From the entry toe tag
  • With pro schedules never cast in granite even at season’s start, a team’s preseason string of games was a makeshift disasterpiece of mismatches.2004, Neil W. Macdonald, “9. Picked Nines and the Pick of Nines”, in The League That Lasted: 1876 and the Founding of the National League…. From the entry disasterpiece
  • In the San Diego Convention Center, hanging high above the makeshift alleyways of merchandise vendors, more than 40 pairs of anime-style breasts looked down upon me.2022 November 2, Steffi Cao, “Big Mommy Milkers Are A Shield Against Online Harassment, Vtubers Say”, in BuzzFeed News, archived from the…. From the entry milker
  • It was the height of Covid: New York had been decimated by the disease, makeshift morgues and a ghostly city abandoned by anyone with the means to leave.2022 August 25, Emily Maitlis, “I’m not a disgruntled ex-BBC employee – but when an agent of the Tory party decides the broadcaster’s…. From the entry bestloved
  • They sat in the backs of small, makeshift wagons, hardlooking men and women and their hardlooking, skinny children, preaching you over to their stand, promising your money's worth.2021, Michael Farris Smith, chapter 21, in Nick, New York; Boston; London: Little, Brown and Company, page 119. From the entry hardlooking
  • In walking toward this makeshift auction house myself, I am considering though, if it's just step one of a genial blowoff, though councluding it didn't feel like a blowoff.2020, Jason McGathey, Days Without End. From the entry blowoff
  • Here we would find, perhaps, three 18-pounder guns dug in as antitank defences supplemented by 60 lb "toffee apple" trench mortar bombs buried as makeshift anti-tank mines.2014, Richard Baber, The SOTCW World War I Compendium. From the entry toffee apple
  • It had an enclosed snowporch peppered with hooks and, on the bare board floor, a boot rack and a large, flat stone to serve as a makeshift meat store.2006, Melanie McGrath, The Long Exile: A True Story of Deception and Survival Amongst the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic, →ISBN, page 71. From the entry snowporch
  • Behind the lines, the gunners had the semiprotection of makeshift shelters - sheets of corrugated galvanized iron, bolted together and covered with layers of sandbags, sod, and netting.2003, Shelley McKellar, Surgical limits: the life of Gordon Murray, page 17. From the entry semiprotection
  • And so, in a sense, folklore was, in the rhetoric of the thirties, a makeshift, used more as an enabling language, a medium, than anything else.2000, Katerina Clark, The Soviet Novel, page 151. From the entry folkism
  • From flag-toting pedestrians, to bumperstickers, to makeshift fliers, to buttons (znachki), the national symbol of Ukraine, the tryzub, and the Ukrainian blue-and-yellow flag were everywhere apparent.1996, Catherine Wanner, “Nationalism on Stage: Music and Change in Soviet Ukraine”, in Mark Slobin, editor, Returning Culture: Musical…. From the entry tryzub
  • She noted with tenderness all the makeshifts: the darned chair-arms, the patent rocker covered with sleazy cretonne, the pasted strips of paper mending the birch-bark napkin-rings labeled "Papa" and "Mama."1920, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 12, in Main Street. From the entry sleazy

Meaning of makeshift

  1. noun A temporary (usually insubstantial) substitution.
  2. adjective Made to work or suffice; improvised; substituted.
  3. noun A rogue; a shifty person.

Full definition of makeshift

Questions about makeshift in a sentence

How do you use makeshift in a sentence?
Makeshift is used as a noun and adjective. For example: “They used the ledge and a few branches for a makeshift shelter.”
What is a short sentence with makeshift?
“And so makeshift and second-best have continued.”
What does makeshift mean?
Makeshift means a temporary (usually insubstantial) substitution.

Source and license

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