Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use miserable in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun

Miserable means in a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor. Example: “He's good at some sports, like tennis, but he's just miserable at football.”

Examples of miserable by meaning

adjectiveIn a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.

  • Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
  • The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.1910, George Bernard Shaw, A Treatise on Parents and Children

adjectiveVery bad (at something); unskilled, incompetent; hopeless.

  • He's good at some sports, like tennis, but he's just miserable at football.

adjectiveWretched; worthless; mean; contemptible.

  • a miserable sinner

nounA state of misery or melancholy.

  • By 3:00 P.M. both DeeDee and Sandra's pants were thoroughly soaked, and this unhappy circumstance gave DeeDee a bad case of the miserables.1984, Barbara Wernecke Durkin, Oh, You Dundalk Girls, Can't You Dance the Polka?, page 10

More sentences with miserable

  • She felt miserable unless she had neighbors with whom to quarrel regularly.From the entry whom
  • She took a vacation to France but spent the whole time feeling miserable that her husband couldn't be there with her.From the entry take
  • I felt cold and miserable all night.From the entry feel
  • He managed to affect a smile despite feeling quite miserable.From the entry affect
  • You're looking a bit miserable. What's up?From the entry what's up
  • She was sobbing because she was feeling very miserable.From the entry sob
  • In winter, the bloomless trees looked gaunt and miserable.From the entry bloomless
  • He may be insulting, a miserable rotter and a fool, but unless he slanders or libels you, or damages your property, you do not have standing to sue him.From the entry standing
  • When those of us with W-2 income say the ultrawealthy are all miserable anyway, that’s cope.2025 October 20, Nitsuh Abebe, “Are You Resigned to a World of Bad News? Or Do You Need Some ‘Cope’?”, in The New York Times Magazine, New…. From the entry cope
  • He had one pair of brogues and the soles were in a miserable state.2016, Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad, Fleet (2017), page 161. From the entry brogue
  • “Pupils who had been miserable now became active and lifeful,” she told me with obvious satisfaction.2015, Stephen C. Smith, Ending Global Poverty: A Guide to What Works. From the entry lifeful
  • Which, of course, her gouty, miserable clutchfist of a spouse had not.2010, Patricia Rice, Wicked Wyckerly (Rebellious Sons; 1). From the entry clutchfist
  • It's what happens to men who take stupid jobs in miserable locations just for the money.2008, George Lowe, The Hard, Hard Life of George A. Lowe, page 75. From the entry rock happy
  • Desperately injured, sick, or miserable workers used the "black pill," an overdose of opium, to commit suicide.2005, Volney Steele, Bleed, Blister, and Purge. From the entry black pill
  • Nora Ludd feels much happier when making Bayer executives’ lives miserable by visiting their homes at night.2004 March-April, Nora Ludd, “Bashing Bayer in Britain!”, in Earth First! The Radical Environmental Journal, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 7, column 2. From the entry Outer Mongolia
  • Had you no shame, you miserable beast, to let such an affront get past your lips?2003, Nick Nicholas, George Baloglou, An Entertaining Tale of Quadrupeds. From the entry oxling
  • Old boys who were miserable here send their sons here to make them miserable.2000, Anthony Akerman, Dark Outsider: Three Plays, page 123. From the entry cack
  • However, the heady experience of Karachi was followed by a miserable phase of Daisingari.1999, Nirupamā Baragohāñi, Abhiyatri. From the entry walk on sunshine
  • This would mean the miserable loss of the fruits of such a joyous victory.1998, Nataniel Aguirre, translated by Sergio Gabriel Waisman, “The Battle of Aroma According to Alejo”, in Alba María Paz-Soldán, editor…. From the entry what can one do
  • You didn't have to be politically correct or well-behaved; you could be wild or angry or miserable.1980 December 20, Andrea F. Loewenstein, “A Personal Remembrance Of The Saints”, in Gay Community News, volume 8, number 22, page 14. From the entry fall apart
  • Truly, the Communist Party is the savior and benefactor of poor and miserable people.1976, Sidney L. Greenblatt, editor, The People of Taihang, White Plains, NY: International Arts and Sciences Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC…. From the entry Ch'ang-tzu
  • He had a sharp weasely face and a miserable body on which each bone showed.1956, Ian Fleming, chapter 13, in Diamonds Are Forever, London: Pan Books, published 1958. From the entry weaselly
  • Let us face it, our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter I, in Animal…. From the entry laborious
  • Only a miserable remnant of the oyster's progeny arrives at the stage of adult oysterhood.1934, Pamphlets on Biology: Kofoid collection, volume 2482, page 64. From the entry oysterhood
  • That miserable young man kept his eyes astrain towards the upper window, but without reward.1913, Maurice Hewlett, Bendish. From the entry astrain
  • But oh, what a little miserable pleasure that is in comparison with the rapture I have forfeited!1911 October 26, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson, or, An Oxford Love Story, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company…. From the entry thistledown
  • “But the miserable cruff never did come back.2024 September 9, Bill Odenkirk, “Planet Espresso” (2:48 from the start), in Futurama, season 12, episode 7, spoken by Hermes Conrad (Phil…. From the entry cruff
  • We must go beyond the miserable confines of now.2018 December 14, Ben Parker, “The 10,000-year clock and the importance of durable design”, in CNN, archived from the original on 19 Dec…. From the entry 2100s
  • True, it was miserable for the poor.2013 July 27, “Penury portrait”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8846. From the entry mercantilist
  • The elder Cobos became over-cruel in his handling of the miserable horde, and several very unpleasant occurrences led to tragedy.2013, William Albert Robinson, Deep Water and Shoal. From the entry overcruel
  • That startling admission capped a miserable night for City as they arrived in Germany following an unbeaten start to the season.2011 September 27, Alistair Magowan, “Bayern Munich 2 - 0 Man City”, in BBC Sport. From the entry unbeaten
  • Even back then, a party just wasn't a party without my bestie, and I was miserable for the last eight frames.2008, Julie Kraut, Shallon Lester, Hot Mess: Summer in the City. From the entry bestie
  • Two weeks later, the Cornhuskers put on their road whites again and promptly got schooled by miserable Iowa State in Ames.2006, Steve Smith, Forever Red: Confessions of a Cornhusker Football Fan, page 67. From the entry school
  • What a narky, miserable bunch of sods.2005, Mark Latham, The Latham Diaries, page 141. From the entry narky
  • "I'm miserable," Sam proclaimed, plodding behind with his shoelace flapping.2002, Diana Wynne Jones, A Tale of Time City, page 41. From the entry whinge

Meaning of miserable

  1. adjective In a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.
  2. adjective Very bad (at something); unskilled, incompetent; hopeless.
  3. adjective Of the weather, extremely unpleasant due to being cold, wet, overcast, etc.

Full definition of miserable

Questions about miserable in a sentence

How do you use miserable in a sentence?
Miserable is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “He's good at some sports, like tennis, but he's just miserable at football.”
What is a short sentence with miserable?
“a miserable sinner”
What does miserable mean?
Miserable means in a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: miserable (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.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use miserable in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/miserable. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.