Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use reef in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb, adjective

Reef means a chain or range of rocks, sand, or coral lying at or near the surface of the water. Example: “Reef the paddles.”

Examples of reef by meaning

verbTo take in part of a sail in order to adapt the size of the sail to the force of the wind.

  • Mains are made smaller by reefing.1995, David Seidman, The Complete Sailor: Learning the Art of Sailing, page 104
  • The reefing system for a mainsail must be designed to operate efficiently under adverse conditions and to provide proper sail shape when reefed.2004, Charlie Wing, How Boat Things Work, page 108

verbTo pull or yank strongly, especially in relation to horse riding.

  • He reefed on the handbrake and sat smoking his cigarette, gazing out through the windscreen at the driveway.2002, Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country, Allen & Unwin, published 2003, page 76

verbTo move the floats of a paddle wheel toward its center so that they will not dip so deeply.

  • Reef the paddles.

verbTo manipulate the lining of a person's pocket in order to steal the contents unnoticed.

  • This was done by "reefing." He put two fingers just inside the opening and lifted the lining a trifle.Myron M. Stearns, So You Lost Your Pocketbook?, in 1940, The Rotarian (volume 56, number 2, page 39)

More sentences with reef

  • We couldn't take the boat into the shallows near the reef because our sonar pinger was broken.From the entry pinger
  • The incoming tides bathed the coral reef.From the entry bathe
  • They wore snorkels while exploring the coral reef.From the entry snorkel
  • Strike the door sharply with your foot and see if it comes loose. A bullet struck him. The ship struck a reef.From the entry strike
  • There was a reef island between the two islands called Zhongzhu Island in the past.(Can we date this quote?), “Zhongzhu Island”, in Matsu eTravel, archived from the original on 27 Sep 2025. From the entry Xiyin
  • The edge of the island is steep and formed by a narrow reef belt enclosing a lagoon.2021, Jinming Li, “Geographical overview of China's maritime boundaries in the South China Sea”, in Liao Jing, Fu Rongbao, transl.…. From the entry South Rock
  • Only Minzhu Reef rises above the waterline, while the rest are submerged coral reefs.[2016 March 23, “Position Paper on ROC South China Sea Policy”, in Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Auckland, →ISBN, archived from…. From the entry Scarborough Shoal
  • Finally, coral reef POM constitutes a source of OM for planktonic invertebrates and planktonophagous fish.2015 July 2, Briand MJ, Bonnet X, Goiran C, Guillou G, Letourneur Y, “Major Sources of Organic Matter in a Complex Coral Reef Lagoon…. From the entry planktonophagous
  • Many species of coral are calcifiers; this is how they construct the towering structures that become reefs.2014, Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Picador, →ISBN, page 121. From the entry calcifier
  • UVC provided better estimates of the rare or cryptic reef associated species.2012, Michael Lowry, Heath Folpp, Marcus Gregson, Iain Suthers, “Comparison of baited remote underwater video (BRUV) and underwater visual…. From the entry UVC
  • There was a typical reef construction here with large plating corals at deeper depths.2011, Max Gallimore, From Here to Caprock, page 354. From the entry decompress
  • Here, fringing reefs provide good shelter for ships and there is an important naval base at Makung.2011, Barbara Weightman, “Korea and Taiwan: Tigers Rising”, in Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia, 3rd…. From the entry Makung
  • The boys move in cloudish groups, like schools of fish on the reef.2010, Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna: A Novel. From the entry cloudish
  • It is a very large fish found on deepwater reefs of the southeastern United States.2009, Calhoun Country Navigation District’s Proposed Matagorda Ship Channel Improvement Project: Environmental Impact Statement, section…. From the entry warsaw
  • There are several rocks on the reef, the biggest of which is South Rock (Nanyan).2005, Zou Keyuan, “Dispute over the Scarborough Reef”, in Law of the Sea in East Asia: Issues and prospects, Routledge, →ISBN, →OCLC, page…. From the entry South Rock
  • Much of the Permian Capitan reef was strongly differentiated into open surface and cryptic communities.1999, Rachel Wood, Reef Evolution, page 95. From the entry cryptic
  • This near-term gray reef pup bears a pseudo-umbilical cord that connects the young shark to maternal tissue.1993, Leighton R. Taylor, Sharks of Hawaii: Their Biology and Cultural Significance, →ISBN, page 15. From the entry pseudo-umbilical
  • The reef barrier does not have a simple reef-rubble slope on the platformward side.1989, Sedimentation and Stratigraphy of Carbonate Rock Sequences, page 56. From the entry platformward
  • The shoals and reefs of Zhongsha (or the Macclesfield Bank) do not emerge even at low water.1987, Donald E. Weatherbee, “The South China Sea: From Zone of Conflict to Zone of Peace?”, in Lawrence E. Grinter, Young Whan Kihl…. From the entry Zhongsha
  • There are many places on the reef that break during the summer.1966, Bruce Brown, director, The Endless Summer. From the entry break
  • You find out where the rocks are, how the waves are breaking over the rocks or reef.1966, Bruce Brown, director, The Endless Summer. From the entry wired
  • It is composed of a large group of islands, islets, shoals, and reefs.1963 March 28 [1962], Ch'en Tung-k'ang (7115 2767 1660) [陳棟康], “Our Country's South Sea Archipelagoes”, in Wu Han (0702 2498) [吳晗]…. From the entry Hsi-sha
  • Once there were islands all asprout with palms: and coral reefs and sands as white as milk.1959, Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone. From the entry asprout
  • Rushing out to the point above the reef, we watched the conflict between canoe and sea.1941, Emily Carr, chapter 18, in Klee Wyck. From the entry dogged
  • And above all, ceaseless like time, is the dull roar of the breakers on the reef.1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 53, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC, pages…. From the entry breaker
  • During high tide, Zhongzhu Island became an isolated reef island, located approximately two hundred meters from Xiyin Island.(Can we date this quote?), “Zhongzhu Island”, in Matsu eTravel, archived from the original on 27 Sep 2025. From the entry Xiyin
  • Zhaoshu Island (ZSI) is one of the main coral reef islands of the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea.2021, Ming Chen, Fenzhen Su, Fei Cheng, Yu Zhang, Xuege Wang, “Development of a comprehensive assessment model for coral reef island…. From the entry Tree Island
  • Species living in the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Northern Sea had similar encephalisation indices compared to the indopacific coral reef dwelling species.2015 August 12, “Relative Brain and Brain Part Sizes Provide Only Limited Evidence that Machiavellian Behaviour in Cleaner Wrasse Is…. From the entry indopacific
  • The vision for oyster-tecture is to create a network of oyster reefs that interlink from Texas to Maine.2012 May 30, Neil Chambers, “The Viability and Vision of Oyster-tecture”, in Metropolis. From the entry oyster-tecture
  • Numerous species of crabs occur on the soft sediments between reefs, particularly swimming crabs of the genera Charybdis and Portunus.2008, S. T. Ahyong, “23: Arthropoda: Crustaceans and Pycnogonids”, in Pat Hutchings, Mike Kingsford, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, editors, The…. From the entry swimming crab
  • Many coral reefs are submerged, some 10-20 m deep.1990 August, Paul K.I. Chao, The Changing Geography of China: A Synoptic View, Hong Kong: The Commercial Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 120. From the entry Zhongsha
  • The Macclesfield Bank (Chungsha ch’ün-tao) consists of 24 shoals, 3 reefs and 2 banks, all of which are under water.1974, United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, “Fact Sheet from Embassy of the Republic of Viet-Nam Information Office…. From the entry Chungsha
  • The reason they say is because this barrier reef.1966, Bruce Brown, director, The Endless Summer. From the entry barrier reef
  • I knew that there were kelp beds and reefs which could rip the bottoms from boats down in Skedans Bay.1941, Emily Carr, chapter 18, in Klee Wyck. From the entry bed
  • And while remembering, look upward toward the chosen six who have guided our Sophomore steamboat through the reefs and shoals.1939, Legend, Fort Wayne, Ind.: North Side High School, page 63. From the entry adviseress

Meaning of reef

  1. noun A chain or range of rocks, sand, or coral lying at or near the surface of the water.
  2. noun A large vein of auriferous quartz; hence, any body of rock yielding valuable ore.
  3. noun A portion of a sail rolled and tied down to lessen the area exposed in a high wind.

Full definition of reef

Questions about reef in a sentence

How do you use reef in a sentence?
Reef is used as a noun, verb and adjective. For example: “Reef the paddles.”
What is a short sentence with reef?
“Reef the paddles.”
What does reef mean?
Reef means a chain or range of rocks, sand, or coral lying at or near the surface of the water.

Source and license

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