Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use pitfall in a sentence

25 example sentences · noun, verb

Pitfall means a type of trap consisting of a concealed pit in the ground, into which the victim is supposed to fall and not be able to get out from. Example: “It's usually a simple task, but you should know the pitfalls before you attempt it yourself.”

Examples of pitfall by meaning

nounA potential, unsuspected, hidden problem, hazard, or danger that is easily encountered but not immediately obvious.

  • It's usually a simple task, but you should know the pitfalls before you attempt it yourself.

More sentences with pitfall

  • When pitfalling in dry areas, birds and other animals soon learn where to get a drink.2023, George C. McGavin, Leonidas-Romanos Davranoglou, Essential Entomology, page 287. From the entry pitfalling
  • But always with my future as Nicholas's illustration of moral pitfalling possibilities.2013, Julian Mitchell, Imaginary Toys. From the entry pitfalling
  • Saying lines without thinking is a pitfall actors need to avoid, not seek out.2011, William B. Davis, Where There's Smoke...: Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man, a Memoir. From the entry Italian rehearsal
  • Your next story of a travel pitfall the TSA isn't warning you about comes from Adam Felber.2008 February 2, Peter Sagal, “Wait, Wait...Don’t Tell Me!”, in National Public Radio. From the entry TSA
  • They have sharp eyes for pitfalls, snakes, hornets, and stinging plants.1943 April 4, Allied Geographical Section, Southwest Pacific Area, Getting About in New Guinea, page 6. From the entry liana
  • Where it leads, and if it's beset with "pitfall and gin", I can't say."1930, Sax Rohmer, The Day the World Ended, published 1969, page xi. 103. From the entry pitfall and gin
  • Tom Slater made a congratulatory speech—in reality, a mournful adjuration to avoid the pitfalls of matrimonial inharmony.1912, Rex Ellingwood Beach, chapter 22, in The Iron Trail: An Alaskan Romance. From the entry inharmony
  • Irreputable instalment credit houses are continually laying their pitfalls in the path of the worker.1912, September. "Assigning Your Salary", Wells Fargo Messenger, Volumes 1–2, Wells Fargo & Company, page 198. From the entry irreputable
  • Awkward or repetitive prose presented another pitfall.2026 February 8, Alexandra Alter, “The New Fabio Is Claude”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry manhood
  • Stirling falls into none of these pitfalls.2002 January, Paul Di Filippo, “The Peshawar Lancers”, in SyFy, archived from the original on 14 Jun 2002. From the entry uchronia
  • Another common psychological pitfall is something called the "impostor syndrome."1984, Gay Bryant, The Working Woman Report: Succeeding in Business in the 80s, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 177. From the entry impostor syndrome
  • Mary Ann could witness the intricacies, the pitfalls, and the tightrope walkings of marriage, and even handle them, but not Michael.1971, Catherine Cookson, “The Lapse”, in The Lord and Mary Ann (Mary Ann; 2), New York, N.Y.: William Morrow and Company, published 1975…. From the entry tightrope walking
  • Screens allow us to live, work and play but with the benefits come the pitfalls: online addiction is a big and growing concern.2019 March 1, Karen Nimmo, Busy As F*ck, HarperCollins, →ISBN. From the entry screenaholic
  • In light of these pitfalls we need 'Standards of Webidence' to guide the selection and documentation of online language for linguistic research.2015, Corpus Linguistics and the Web, page 36. From the entry webidence
  • He alerts them to every conceivable pitfall, unadorns them of every emotional bias, slices through every pie in the sky as if it's lemon meringue.2001, Gale Group, Newsmakers - Issue 4, →ISBN, page 281. From the entry unadorn
  • While democratic forces remain active throughout the African continent, scholars continue to spill ink debating the promises and pitfalls of African democratic transitions.1999, Bamidele A. Ojo, Contemporary African politics, page 1. From the entry spill ink
  • By orchestrating this work with such cool reserve, Doolas avoided the pitfall of turning her celebration of womanhood into a free-for-all hugfest.1988 March 4, Justin Hayford, “Ambiguous Gestures”, in Chicago Reader. From the entry orchestrate
  • Only through a deeper recognition of the meaning of divine judgment can we escape the pitfalls of an overblithe optimism in good times and faith-destroying bitterness in evil days.2010, Rebekah Miles, Georgia Harkness: The Remaking of a Liberal Theologian, page 162. From the entry overblithe
  • Adding to the lack of vegetarian identity some business owners are purposely “deflecting attention away from a product’s vegetarianness . . . to avoid the dreaded pitfall of ‘veg-phobia.’”2010, Laura K. Hahn, quoting the Corolla Wild Horse Fund, “I’m Too Sexy for Your Movement: An Analysis of the Failure of the Animal Rights…. From the entry vegetarianness
  • This provides for greater communicability but it also introduces new pitfalls, for the possibility of anthropomorphizing birds is at least as great as that of a zoomorphizing man.1964, Margaret Mead, Continuities in Cultural Evolution. From the entry zoomorphize
  • Richardson's "New Year's Gift," but still with a few pitfalls and gins for the unwary, this innocent six-card problem has a certain novelty of its own.1949 January 13, The Herald, Melbourne, page 13, column 2. From the entry pitfall and gin
  • Do I roll several occasions into one, or amplify one beyond reason? — this last being ever, I allow, the waiting pitfall of a chronicler too memory-ridden.1914, Henry James, chapter 6, in Notes of a Son and Brother, page 204. From the entry memory-ridden
  • My acquaintance with trick values, "approach-forcing," the pitfalls of no-trump, the conventions and the various "systems" has come by word of mouth or by painful experience at the card table.1937 March, Silas Bent, “Should we abolish bridge? Yessir!”, in The Rotarian, page 10. From the entry approach-forcing
  • Gowselling in the grummels he wakes the plaintiff night with pitfalls turning left to right, high noon on the wintry ocean, high noon all sides aboard and aloft to starboard.1936, Henry Miller, “Into the Night Life …”, in Black Spring, Paris: The Obelisk Press […], →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Grove…. From the entry grummel

Meaning of pitfall

  1. noun A type of trap consisting of a concealed pit in the ground, into which the victim is supposed to fall and not be able to get out from.
  2. noun A potential, unsuspected, hidden problem, hazard, or danger that is easily encountered but not immediately obvious.
  3. noun An antipattern.

Full definition of pitfall

Questions about pitfall in a sentence

How do you use pitfall in a sentence?
Pitfall is used as a noun and verb. For example: “It's usually a simple task, but you should know the pitfalls before you attempt it yourself.”
What is a short sentence with pitfall?
“Awkward or repetitive prose presented another pitfall.”
What does pitfall mean?
Pitfall means a type of trap consisting of a concealed pit in the ground, into which the victim is supposed to fall and not be able to get out from.

Source and license

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