How to use reply in a sentence
40 example sentences · verb, noun
Reply means to give a written or spoken response, especially to a question, request, accusation or criticism; to answer. Example: “(intransitive) Please reply to my letter.”
Examples of reply by meaning
verbTo give a written or spoken response, especially to a question, request, accusation or criticism; to answer.
- (intransitive) Please reply to my letter.
- (transitive) "Sorry I'm late," replied the student.
- (transitive) He replied that he was not sure.
verbTo act or gesture in response.
- Joanne replied to Pete's insult with a slap to his face.
nounA written or spoken response; part of a conversation.
- For example, it is said that someone at a party once asked the famous philosopher Ly Tin Weedle ‘Why are you here?’ And the reply took three years.1986, Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic, published 2022, page 12
More sentences with reply
- She replied in the negative, with a shake of her head.From the entry shake
- I'll be online tonight, so I'll be able to reply to your email.From the entry online
- My brother thumbed his nose in reply to my snide remarks.From the entry thumb one's nose
- He spoke to the apparition, and although its lips did not move, he somehow heard its reply.From the entry apparition
- The protesters replied to the police officers' demands with a chorus of oinks.From the entry oink
- Please think about your reply and don't just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.From the entry blurt
- I received an illogical reply and that left me standing there feeling confused.From the entry illogical
- His reply was strongly suggestive of a forthcoming challenge to the governor.From the entry strongly
- I wrote a complaint to the company, but they just sent me a canned response in reply.From the entry canned response
- Please enclose a stamped self-addressed envelope if you require a reply.From the entry enclose
- It was a longish time before I received a reply to my letter.From the entry longish
- When the neighbours' dog barked, ours instantly replied with a howl.From the entry instantly
- I had meant to cc you on this earlier. Please reply by next Thursday. Thanks.From the entry cc
- A poignant reply will garner more credence than hours of blown smoke.From the entry poignant
- The attorney peppered him with rapid fire questions, barely giving him time to reply.From the entry rapid fire
- The president's quick and humorous replies gave his speech great quotability.From the entry quotability
- I asked Jim what religion he was, and he replied "bush baptist".From the entry bush baptist
- When he insulted me, my reply was such a shutdown that he left the room.From the entry shutdown
- He stood there speechlessly. The surprise had rendered him unable to make an intelligible reply.From the entry speechlessly
- "Just so much flour," he replied, sprinkling a small pile on the table.From the entry so much
- No sooner had I replied to his first question, than he fired off another one.From the entry fire off
- On receiving the letter, I immediately set upon writing a reply.From the entry set upon
- The replies to the questionnaires are now all in.From the entry in
- “And thank you for being so sweet,” replied her mom.From the entry thank you
- You are not legally bound to reply.From the entry bound
- I await your reply to my letter.From the entry await
- When I hit post, I saw that Blue Emu had ninja'd me, so I just deleted my reply.From the entry ninja
- She gave a swift reply to his question.From the entry swift
- He gave me a very tart reply.From the entry tart
- He snorted a derisory reply and turned on his heel.From the entry snort
- The politician dodged the question with a meaningless reply.From the entry dodge
- The stand-up dealt well with the heckles from the crowd, replying with raucous banter to raise plenty of laughs.From the entry heckle
- I was rather taken aback by his angry reply.From the entry take aback
- He sent me an ingenious reply to an email.From the entry ingenious
- When I asked her about her husband, she replied sharply that she had not seen him for several months.From the entry sharply
Meaning of reply
- verb To give a written or spoken response, especially to a question, request, accusation or criticism; to answer.
- verb To act or gesture in response.
- verb To repeat something back; to echo.
Questions about reply in a sentence
- How do you use reply in a sentence?
- Reply is used as a verb and noun. For example: “(intransitive) Please reply to my letter.”
- What is a short sentence with reply?
- “(intransitive) Please reply to my letter.”
- What does reply mean?
- Reply means to give a written or spoken response, especially to a question, request, accusation or criticism; to answer.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: reply (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 reply in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/reply. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.