How to use riotous in a sentence

10 example sentences · adjective

Riotous means having the characteristics of a riot. Example: “The prison administrators are always planting seeds of hate, division, separatism, and prison peer group racism in the various ethnic groups here, causing friction and riotous situations where one group is set against another.”

Examples of riotous by meaning

adjectiveCausing, inciting or taking part in a riot.

The prison administrators are always planting seeds of hate, division, separatism, and prison peer group racism in the various ethnic groups here, causing friction and riotous situations where one group is set against another.1982 April 10, Roosevelt Williamson, “Prison Racism and Legal Slavery in America”, in Gay Community News, page 15

adjectiveUnrestrained and boisterous; degenerate or dissolute.

The passenger in them has no escape from the annoyance of squalling babies, boisterous drunks, and riotous teddy-boys, who may be at the far end of the coach but whose din cannot be shut out.1959 February, “Letters to the Editor: Open-Type Coaches on B.R.”, in Railway Magazine, page 135

More sentences with riotous

Someone else had given a countercommand — the Spanish soldiers were in riotous retreat!1933, Collier's Illustrated Weekly, volume 91, page 16. From the entry countercommand
Never had they noticed the roses so vivid, the willow-herb so riotous, the meadow-sweet so odorous and pervading.1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC. From the entry unsurpassable
Peng and a small group of volunteers built memorial arches across the park’s steep roads and paths lined with riotous subtropical vegetation.2016 October 2, Didi Kirsten Tatlow, “Fate Catches Up to a Cultural Revolution Museum in China”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC…. From the entry mass grave
Great skelps of riotous colors followed each other across the window-framed screen, pounding upon bleak northern hearts as the surf pounds upon a rocky headland.1921, The Smart Set: A Magazine of Cleverness, page 4. From the entry skelp
One of them, Allure Potemkin (and don’t you wish that was your name?), hikes up her slip and does a riotous dance number called Baby Legs.2007 August 2, Liz Nicholls, “Gala to mark Teatro’s entry into the quarter-century club”, in Edmonton Journal, Edmonton, Alta., page D3…. From the entry baby
Thus profits, as a source of capital increment for entrepreneurs, are a widow's cruse which remains undepleted however much of them may be devoted to riotous living.2005, Jan Toporowski, Theories of financial disturbance. From the entry widow's cruse
Church of England churches are hardly known for their riotous parties every Sunday but at least the congregation has a quiet chitchat before it's time to get all worshippy.2005, S J Smith, Joe Public. From the entry worshippy
At the end of the twentieth century Nature is alive and well, permeating the experience of everyday life as a riotous profusion of heterotropic images, signs and discursive constructs.1998, Andrew Herod, Gearóid Ó Tuathail, Gerard Toal, An Unruly World?: Globalization, Governance, and Geography, →ISBN. From the entry heterotropic

Meaning of riotous

adjective Having the characteristics of a riot.
adjective Causing, inciting or taking part in a riot.
adjective Unrestrained and boisterous; degenerate or dissolute.

Full definition of riotous

Questions about riotous in a sentence

How do you use riotous in a sentence?: Riotous is used as an adjective. For example: “The prison administrators are always planting seeds of hate, division, separatism, and prison peer group racism in the various ethnic groups here, causing friction and riotous situations where one group is set against another.”
What is a short sentence with riotous?: “Someone else had given a countercommand — the Spanish soldiers were in riotous retreat!”
What does riotous mean?: Riotous means having the characteristics of a riot.

Adapted from Wiktionary: riotous (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: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use riotous in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/riotous. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.