Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use poach in a sentence

33 example sentences · verb, noun

Poach means to cook (something) in simmering or very hot liquid (usually water; sometimes wine, broth, or otherwise). Example: “Cattle coming to drink had punched and poached the river bank into a mess of mud.”

Examples of poach by meaning

verbTo cook (something) in simmering or very hot liquid (usually water; sometimes wine, broth, or otherwise).

  • Mulligatawny soup, poached turbot, roast leg of lamb—the usual railway dinner.1931, Francis Beeding, “1/1”, in Death Walks in Eastrepps

nounThe act of cooking in simmering liquid.

  • Peaches are so perfect they need very little to make them extra special—just a quick poach in basil-scented rosé wine and a few adoring strawberries.2005, Jill Dupleix, Good Cooking: The New Basics, page 152

verbTo take game or fish illegally.

  • A 2016 study using carbon dating of more than 200 tusks from seizures spanning nine countries suggested that illegal ivory originates from elephants poached recently, instead of being pilfered from aging stockpiles kept by various nations.2021 November 12, Christine Chung, “2 Ivory Smugglers Captured in International Operation, U.S. Says”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

verbTo take anything illegally or unfairly.

  • Chelsea's embarrassment was symbolised by Ross Barkley's inexplicable header straight to the feet of Aguero to poach his second and Ilkay Gundogan capped that early blitz with a low drive.2019 February 10, Phil McNulty, “Manchester City 6-0 Chelsea”, in BBC Sport

verbTo intrude; to interfere; to get involved inappropriately, without welcome.

  • to poach in foreign academic disciplines

verbTo entice (an employee or customer) to switch from a competing company to one's own.

  • Are you trying to poach my teamaker?2006 November 3, Tim Hedrick, “Lake Laogai” (2:58 from the start), in Lauren MacMullan, director, Avatar: The Last Airbender, season 2...
  • EBay has accused three Amazon managers of illegally conspiring to poach its sellers, escalating a monthslong feud between two of the country’s largest e-commerce companies.2019 August 1, Karen Weise, “EBay Accuses Amazon Managers of Conspiring to Poach Its Sellers”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

verbTo make soft or muddy by trampling.

  • Cattle coming to drink had punched and poached the river bank into a mess of mud.

verbTo stab; to pierce; to spear or drive or plunge into something.

  • Mutt Malvern stands with a wicked blade in one hand and, in the other, a three-pronged leister spear of the sort used to poach fish or birds.2011, Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races

More sentences with poach

  • The poached blubber was definitely cetacean in origin, but the particular species could not be identified.From the entry cetacean
  • The essential ingredients of salad lyonnaise are bacon, croutons and poached egg.From the entry lyonnaise
  • The rival company's sales force is poaching on our turf.From the entry sales force
  • From 7 a.m.-2 p.m., options include homemade beef blinis, poached eggs and bulochka.2021 May 12, Andrew Atkins, “Restaurant news: Claudio makes gluten-free sweets”, in Naples Daily News, volume 97th, number 292, Naples…. From the entry bulochka
  • Thought I might do it with a poached egg, bit of pepper, bread and scrape”2018 February 11, Colin Dexter, Russell Lewis, 31:48 from the start, in Endeavour(Cartouche), season 5, episode 2 (TV series), spoken by…. From the entry scrape
  • The relatively simple risotto Bourguignon with a soft poached egg and red wine occupies four big pages.2012 December 8, Christopher Hirst, “Books of the Year 2012: Food”, in The Independent, London: Independent News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC…. From the entry bourguignon
  • Fish may be poached and the liquor used to make an avgolemono sauce.2009, Margaret Fulton, Avgolemono: Margaret Fulton's Encyclopedia of Food and Cookery, page 17. From the entry avgolemono
  • For instance (to borrow an example from Lewis), you could have been a poached egg.2008, Neil Feit, Belief about the Self: A Defense of the Property Theory of Content, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, pages…. From the entry haecceitism
  • Besides habitat loss and alteration, poaching also gives cause for concern.2008 August, Yang Liu, Zheng-wang Zhang, Jian-qiang Li, Yu Zhang, Shan Lu, Xiang-feng Ruan, “A survey of the birds of the Dabie Shan…. From the entry Guangshui
  • The fish is gently poached in milk with onions, then flaked.2007, “Soups and Salads”, in 1001 Foods to Die For, Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews McMeel Publishing, →ISBN, page 124. From the entry Cullen skink
  • I can scramble them, poach them, Benedict them, and make them into omelets.2003, Beth Goldner, Wake: Stories, page 107. From the entry benedict
  • There was to be salmon, an enormous beast poached in one of The Court’s giant fishkettles.1989, Elizabeth Walker [pseudonym; Elizabeth Rotter], chapter 29, in The Court, London: Judy Piatkus (Publishers) Ltd, →ISBN, page 271. From the entry fishkettle
  • Poached salmon was a success, too, although the Hollandaise broke down and had to be sent back.1985 April 12, Bryan Miller, “Restaurants”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from…. From the entry hollandaise
  • He accused me of poaching his business.”2015 November, Ali Brandon, chapter 3, in Plot Boiler (Black Cat Bookshop Mysteries; 5), New York, N.Y.: Berkley Prime Crime, →ISBN, page 30. From the entry pee in someone's Cheerios
  • Vanilla ice cream topped with a poached or canned pear half, napped with chocolate sauce, and garnished with toasted sliced almonds.2006, Wayne Gisslen, Mary Ellen Griffin, Professional Cooking for Canadian Chefs. From the entry nap
  • There are hundreds of recipes based on poached eggs.1998 January 14, Barbara Kafka, “A Way to Poach Eggs to Perfection”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company…. From the entry eggs Florentine
  • Why, you’ve charged more for one poached egg on toast than for an entire portion of those eggs that you scramble.”1903 April 2, “Humourist”, in The Sydney Mail, volume LXXV, number 2222, Sydney, N.S.W., page 278, column 1. From the entry daringly
  • The peach melba, probably the most famous sundae of all, is a sound marriage of poached peaches, vanilla ice and raspberry sauce.2008 August 2, Nigel Slater, “Sundae best”, in The Observer, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 16…. From the entry ice
  • Fillets of perch gratineeed over silky homemade noodles, and salmon or chicken poached in riesling, then glossed with a sheer cream sauce, couldn't be better.1999 November 21, “Alsace, Where German Gemtlichkeit Meets French Finesse”, in The New York Times. From the entry gratinéeed
  • You can scallop, steam, poach, bread, brown, stuff, or put your fish in a sauce, and still have it moist and tender.1988, Margie Kreschollek, The guaranteed goof-proof microwave cookbook, →ISBN, page 106. From the entry scallop
  • Siberian pelemeni poached in consommé were outstanding and connoisseurs of cheese blintzes will warm to the alternative blinchiki, filled with kasha and mushrooms.1982, Henri Gault, Christian Millau, translated by Robert Gray, The Best of New York, New York, N.Y.: Crown Publishers, Inc., →ISBN, page…. From the entry blinchik
  • They include campaigns to combat ichthyphagous birds, reed-burning, poaching, the catching of birds and nestlings, the collection and destruction of eggs, etc.1966, Second European Meeting on Wildfowl Conservation: Proceedings, page 109. From the entry ichthyphagous
  • You need a big boiling pot to make poached yellow-eyes, which I like because using a big boiling pot makes me feel like I’m a witchie.2016, April Genevieve Tucholke, Wink Poppy Midnight, New York, N.Y.: Dial Books, →ISBN, page 80. From the entry witchie
  • Rhoda took their battered hats, led the women upstairs for hairpins, and presently fed them all with tea-cakes, poached eggs, anchovy toast, and drinks from a coromandel-wood liqueur case.1917, Rudyard Kipling, “My Son's Wife”, in A Diversity of Creatures. From the entry coromandel

Meaning of poach

  1. verb To cook (something) in simmering or very hot liquid (usually water; sometimes wine, broth, or otherwise).
  2. verb To be cooked in such manner.
  3. noun The act of cooking in simmering liquid.

Full definition of poach

Questions about poach in a sentence

How do you use poach in a sentence?
Poach is used as a verb and noun. For example: “Cattle coming to drink had punched and poached the river bank into a mess of mud.”
What is a short sentence with poach?
“to poach in foreign academic disciplines”
What does poach mean?
Poach means to cook (something) in simmering or very hot liquid (usually water; sometimes wine, broth, or otherwise).

Source and license

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