How to use ruinous in a sentence
11 example sentences · adjective
Ruinous means causing ruin; destructive, calamitous. Example: “They were forced to completely replace the roof at ruinous expense.”
Examples of ruinous by meaning
adjectiveExtremely costly; so expensive as to cause financial ruin.
- They were forced to completely replace the roof at ruinous expense.
- We are rapidly reversing the economic calamity we inherited from the previous administration, including ruinous price increases and record-setting inflation, inflation like we've never had before.2025 September 23, Donald Trump, speech at United Nations
More sentences with ruinous
- No doubt this momentary gain is bought at a ruinous after-cost.2010, Walter Bagehot, Physics and Politics, →ISBN, page 73. From the entry after-cost
- The impact of organized crime on the union movement was ruinous.2006, Guy Lawson, William Oldham, The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia. From the entry mobbed-up
- Millions of American dollars deposited by citizens are frozen in banks, accessible only in local currency at ruinous exchange rates.2022 May 6, “Lebanon’s currency of corruption”, in The Economist, archived from the original on 12 Aug 2022. From the entry lollar
- Their biddings forced existing owners into ruinous competition; they mortgaged their ancestral acres to buy up outlying properties or round off their boundaries.1912, Rowland Prothero, 1st Baron Ernle, English Farming, Past and Present, page 322. From the entry bidding
- Once Robert Smellie found her in a ruinous kirk on the Lang Muir, where of old the idolatrous rites of Rome were practiced.1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide. From the entry idolatrous
- That hideously addictive, ruinous mix of tobacco and hash, the violently, wrenching, contrasting, simultaneous expansion and depression of the senses can be truly horrible, the whirling pits.2001, F. A. Casemore, Skylarks: For Myself, Lest I Forget, or Die Unsung, page 358. From the entry whirling pits
- For, still today, I continue to be amazed at how many senior executives fail fully to realize the potentially ruinous cost of a mis-hire or mispromotion.1991, John Wareham, The Anatomy of a Great Executive, page 5. From the entry mispromotion
- Their engines being “simple,” they consumed a perfectly ruinous amount of coal, sixty-four tons for the round trip; considerably more than the coal consumption of the present twenty-four knotters.1920, Lord Frederick Spencer Hamilton, chapter 3, in The Days Before Yesterday, London: Hodder & Stoughton, page 62. From the entry knotter
- The local Magistrate, a Manchu, had committed suicide after hearing of the fall of Mukden and other Manchurian cities; and the town was in a condition of ruinous disorder.[1910, J. O. P. Bland, E. Backhouse, “The Flight from Peking and the Court in Exile”, in China Under the Empress Dowager, Philadelphia: J.…. From the entry Tianzhen
Meaning of ruinous
- adjective Causing ruin; destructive, calamitous.
- adjective Extremely costly; so expensive as to cause financial ruin.
- adjective Characterized by ruin; ruined; dilapidated; as, an edifice, bridge, or wall in a ruinous state.
Questions about ruinous in a sentence
- How do you use ruinous in a sentence?
- Ruinous is used as an adjective. For example: “They were forced to completely replace the roof at ruinous expense.”
- What is a short sentence with ruinous?
- “No doubt this momentary gain is bought at a ruinous after-cost.”
- What does ruinous mean?
- Ruinous means causing ruin; destructive, calamitous.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ruinous (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 ruinous in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/ruinous. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.