Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use rife in a sentence

32 example sentences · adjective, adverb

Rife means widespread, common, prevalent, current (mainly of unpleasant or harmful things). Example: “Smallpox was rife after the siege had been lifted.”

Examples of rife by meaning

adjectiveWidespread, common, prevalent, current (mainly of unpleasant or harmful things).

  • Smallpox was rife after the siege had been lifted.
  • Rumors were rife that the factory was about to shut down.
  • The 'denominational considerations' mentioned below relate, of course, to anti-Semitic feeling, which was already rife in Vienna during the last years of the nineteenth century.1900, Sigmund Freud, translated by James Strachey, The Interpretation of Dreams: Avon Books, page 170

adjectiveAbounding; present in large numbers, plentiful.

  • Red deer are rife in these woodlands.
  • Seeds are rife in a watermelon.

adjectiveFull of (mostly unpleasant or harmful things).

  • Many post-colonial governments were rife with lawlessness and corruption.
  • They will have to reflect on a seventh successive defeat in a European final while Chelsea try to make sense of an eccentric season rife with controversy and bad feeling but once again one finishing on an exhilarating high.2013 May 15, Daniel Taylor, The Guardian

adverbPlentifully, abundantly.

  • The snowdrops grow rife on the slopes of Mount Pembroke.

More sentences with rife

  • Bad practices were rife at the factory, but the boss stage-managed the inspectors' visit so that they did not see anything amiss.From the entry stage-manage
  • Incelspeak is rife with neologisms as well as novel uses of existing words.2020 December 31, Ewelina Prażmo, “Foids are worse than animals. A cognitive linguistics analysis of dehumanizing metaphors in online…. From the entry incelspeak
  • The river systems of India and Bangladesh are rife with diarrhoeal disease.2011 July 30, “Cholera and the super-loo”, in The Economist. From the entry diarrheal
  • The cult of the footage is rife with subcults, claiming every possible influence.2003, William Gibson, Pattern Recognition (Bigend cycle; book 1), New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, →ISBN, page 4. From the entry subcult
  • Mermnad king of Lydia in whose family ornithonymy may have been rife .1984, Jaan Puhvel, Hittite Etymological Dictionary, page 176. From the entry ornithonymy
  • Countering this in international media by offering more balanced views for a global audience is near impossible as censorship is rife.2023 February 21, Chandran Nair, “Anti-China Rhetoric Is Off the Charts in Western Media”, in The Diplomat. From the entry compact
  • In interviews, current and former students of color described an environment rife with racial insensitivity, including casual uses of slurs.2020 December 26, Dan Levin, “A Racial Slur, a Viral Video, and a Reckoning”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times…. From the entry slur
  • This group is eyepoppingly vivid, utterly gorgeous, and rife with the designer’s political touchpoints and flashes of personal heartbreak.2020 November 13, Janice Breen Burns, “At last, Bendigo frocks up for Indigenous fashion's bold new wave”, in The Sydney Morning Herald. From the entry eye-poppingly
  • In that world, the buzzing of insects is rife.2014, Terence Park, “The Old House”, in Ice Made and Other Stories, page 87. From the entry God's work
  • In a genre that is rife with copycatting, Ms.2007 September 3, Janet Maslin, “His Girl Friday Meets a Sadistically Chic Serial Killer”, in New York Times. From the entry copycat
  • The people therewere supersitious and impoverished, and banditry was rife.1998, “Liu Tsung-Yüan”, in Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd edition, volume 9, Gale Research, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, pages 455–456. From the entry Liu-chou
  • Despite tiresome explications ununderstanding may be rife and rampant.1973, Glenn Pearce, Patrick Maynard, Conceptual change. From the entry ununderstanding
  • Mindy Lahiri is never one to mince words, and most of the things that come out of her mouth are rife for a gospel.2016 June 3, Seija Rankin, “It's National Doughnut Day, so Let's Relive the Best Doughnut Moments in Pop Culture”, in E! Online. From the entry truthy
  • His gigs were always rife with frenetic, spot-on impersonations that included Hollywood stars, presidents, princes, prime ministers, popes and anonymous citizens of the world.2014 August 11, Dave Itzkoff, “Robin Williams, Oscar-Winning Comedian, Dies at 63 in Suspected Suicide”, in New York Times. From the entry uncurtailable
  • By arguing for his domain he gives me the virtue to condense my voice and co-respond within his factor a life rife with pre-edenics.2006, Will Alexander -, Sunrise in Armageddon, →ISBN, page 272. From the entry edenics
  • It would not have taken much to tip Scotland into the serial sectarian violence that was rife in Belfast and the surrounding areas.2005 November 15, Les Brown, Robert Jeffrey, Glasgow Crimefighter: The Les Brown Story, Black & White Publishing, →ISBN. From the entry headbanger
  • Rife says as regards the spade foot, "the fact is always overlooked that the foot used in spading is determined entirely by the bimanual dextrality"1927, Granville Stanley Hall, Edward Bradford Titchener, Karl M. Dallenbach, The American Journal of Psychology - Volume 38, page 336. From the entry spade foot
  • Why should any of the products of culture matter when the current political moment is rife with agita and rage, precluding progress or even respectful discussion?2020, Susan E. Kirtley, editor, With Great Power Comes Great Pedagogy: Teaching, Learning, and Comics. From the entry agita
  • By now the wine counties were rife with the activity of the illegal wine trade and the force of the Prohibition Unit was hustling to keep up.Vivienne Sosnowski, When the Rivers Ran Red: An Amazing Story of Courage and Triumph in America's Wine Country (New York: Palgrave…. From the entry jackass
  • Political platforms are rife with tu quoques: each political party accuses the other of some atrocity or oversight wihout responding to any of the charges laid against them.2005, Robert Malcolm Murray, Nebojsa Kujundzic, Critical Reflection: A Textbook for Critical Thinking, McGill-Queen’s University Press…. From the entry tu quoque
  • This last microtrend—effectively a re-revival—highlights one of the ironies of the 80's resurgence, for the 80's were the first era in pop in which recycling and retrospection became rife.2002 May 5, Simon Reynolds, “The 70's Are So 90's. The 80's Are The Thing Now.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original…. From the entry microtrend
  • Well, we do persist: centibillion-dollar federal deficits still stretch as far as the eye can see, and other indicators of governmental and personal imprudence are rife.1995 February 6, William S. Rukeyser, “Pardon Me, But Is This Armageddon?”, in Fortune, volume 131, number 2, New York, N.Y.: Time Inc.…. From the entry centibillion
  • Now again a report is rife that they are in trouble with the Tibetans and the chief officials from Tachienlu have gone in to their aid.1901 June 10, “The Russ̀ians in Szechuan—In Trouble with the Tibetans”, in The Bombay Gazette, page 6. From the entry Tachienlu
  • It perfectly embodies the idea of a "feel solo," with its brilliant excursion, rife with crying bends, overbends, and just the right amount of space to let the notes resonate.2009, Bob Gulla, Guitar Gods: The 25 Players who Made Rock History, page 94. From the entry overbend

Meaning of rife

  1. adjective Widespread, common, prevalent, current (mainly of unpleasant or harmful things).
  2. adjective Abounding; present in large numbers, plentiful.
  3. adjective Full of (mostly unpleasant or harmful things).

Full definition of rife

Questions about rife in a sentence

How do you use rife in a sentence?
Rife is used as an adjective and adverb. For example: “Smallpox was rife after the siege had been lifted.”
What is a short sentence with rife?
“Seeds are rife in a watermelon.”
What does rife mean?
Rife means widespread, common, prevalent, current (mainly of unpleasant or harmful things).

Source and license

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