Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use sardine in a sentence

29 example sentences · noun, verb, adjective

Sardine means any one of several species of small herring which are commonly preserved in olive oil or in tins for food, especially the European sardine (Sardina pilchardus, syn. Clupea pilchardus). The American sardines of the Atlantic coast are mostly the young of the Atlantic herring and of the menhaden, and many canned sardines in America are sprats. Example: “They feasted on premium sardines packed in olive oil, as did their hunting dogs, who insisted on joining the meal.”

Examples of sardine by meaning

nounAny one of several species of small herring which are commonly preserved in olive oil or in tins for food, especially...

  • They feasted on premium sardines packed in olive oil, as did their hunting dogs, who insisted on joining the meal.

nounSomeone packed or crammed into a small space.

  • They watched bemused as countless sardines disgorged from a railway car that was never designed to hold so many passengers.

verbTo fish for sardines.

  • No one on Monhegan says they saw them, but a man sardining says he saw it headed there, or at least some boat with people atop it.1997, Peter Landesman, The raven: a novel

verbTo pack or cram together tightly.

  • Six-foot- four McMichael (a past master at the art of sardining) not only crammed enough clothes for the trip into the mighty midget, but carried a full set of golf clubs and a banjo, as well!1954, Tom McCahill, The modern sports car
  • Would it be unbearably elitist to suggest that they would be more enjoyable still if the director removed a row or two of chairs, instead of sardining as many listeners as possible into the intimate music room?1986, The New Yorker - Volumen 62
  • There were already six members of the Nureyev family living in a room sixteen meters square, the children sardined on one mattress on the floor, their parents separated by only a curtain.2007, Julie Kavanagh, Nureyev: The Life

More sentences with sardine

  • The fish factory cans the sardines and mackerel.From the entry cans
  • I'm pretty claustrophobic, so I didn't wanna hop in the elevator with them all packed like sardines in there.From the entry packed like sardines
  • Passengers are no longer "willing to be packed into trains like sardines", says London TravelWatch.2022 March 23, “Network News: Passengers Unwilling to be ‘Packed Like Sardines’”, in Rail, number 953, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer…. From the entry packed like sardines
  • The way I look at it, someone other than me is eating sardines.2022, Timothy Cotton, Dawn in the Dooryard, page 192. From the entry 'dine
  • I'll need some mayonnaise and a silver tin of sardines, a banana.2017, Sam Shepard, chapter 27, in Spy of the First Person, →ISBN, page 62. From the entry banana
  • Charlie stepped into the room, which smelled of smoke and sardines.2011, Amity Gaige, The Folded World. From the entry swannish
  • They sat eating gibanica and sardines and drinking some herbal grappa called kadulja.2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 976. From the entry gibanica
  • And polentalike tamales (grits replace cornmeal) can be grilled, along with the sardines, whenever hunger strikes.1989 May, New York Magazine, volume 22, number 20. From the entry polentalike
  • His eyes unhungrily saw shelves of tins, sardines, gaudy lobsters' claws.1989 May, Dennis Brown, The Modernist Self in Twentieth-Century English Literature: A Study in Self-Fragmentation, London: Palgrave…. From the entry unhungrily
  • Its lone occupant, an unsmall woman, looked over and down at the sardined Simea, and grinned broadly.1959 September 21, “Stories of the Week”, in Air Conditioning, Heating & Refrigeration News, volume 88, number 3, Detroit, M.I.: Business…. From the entry unsmall
  • They pack katsuobushi, kombu and often other ingredients, like dried baby sardines (niboshi) and shiitake mushrooms, into a steepable bag.2022 October 19, J. Kenji López-Alt, “What Kenji López-Alt Makes His Family for Dinner”, in The New York Times, archived from the original…. From the entry shiitake
  • Reintroduce protein; add a small serve of salmon, tuna or sardines every second day (tinned variety or fresh).2008, Michael E. Cichorski, Maximum Asthma Control: The Revolutionary 3-Step Anti Asthma Program, page 100. From the entry serve
  • Dirk slid a crackerless sardine headfirst onto his tongue.2006, Michael Scofield, Acting Badly. From the entry crackerless
  • The "entierro de la sardina," the burial of the sardine, is a Galician custom popular in many villages on Ash Wednesday.1999, [1882], Emilia Pardo Bazán, translated by Walter Borenstein, The Tribune of the People, page 253. From the entry Galician
  • Banford, at the other end of the table, said not a word, but piggled with the sardine on her plate.1922, D.H. Lawrence, The Fox, page 48. From the entry piggle
  • The small pelagic fish like anchovies, sardines and sardinella are all abundant species in EBUEs where they all have pelagic egg distributions.2015 October 15, “The Principles of Buoyancy in Marine Fish Eggs and Their Vertical Distributions across the World Oceans”, in PLOS ONE…. From the entry sardinella
  • Violas were school instruments and were got ready for each rehearsal like sardines in a row by the porter, Mr Háček, in his own lodge.1993, Jana Marhounová, Czech Music in the Web of Life (Empatie), page 125. From the entry háček
  • No-one ventured to the Bluff or Toronui, but a van resembling a sardine tin went on a tiki tour of the huge Waipoura kauris.1990, Tane: The Journal of the Auckland University Field Club - Volume 32 (1967-90), page 185. From the entry tiki tour
  • Canned cod liver is available any place, as are smoked flounder and German caviar, not to mention a wide selection of sardines.1970, LaVern Rippley, “German Food”, in Of German Ways, Minneapolis, Minn.: Dillon Press, Inc., published 1973, →ISBN, page 252. From the entry cod liver
  • He will eat a plateful of gazpacho or puchero, a sardine, half a roll of bread, and drink clear water as often as wine.1904, L. Higgin, Eugène E. Street, Spanish Life in Town and Country. From the entry gazpacho
  • In general, while the consumption of fresh fish is tending to increase, 60 per cent of consumption consists of sardines, saurel, anchovy and mackerel, that is, very inexpensive fish.1985, Barbara C. Cleveland, Adjustments to Changes in Fisheries Law and Economics, number 269, page 76. From the entry saurel
  • For breakfast they had hoosh, sardines in tomato sauce and raisins; for lunch Garibaldi biscuits and jelly; and for dinner potted boneless chicken and a small plum pudding.1909, Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, “Christmas on a Glacier”, in The Heart of the Antarctic, volume 2, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott…. From the entry hoosh
  • Sardines and tinned salmon were luxuries we could not afford, but fresh fish and game were better, and, even when salted, were preferrable to a continuous diet of beef.1901, Louis Becke, "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific. From the entry preferrable

Meaning of sardine

  1. noun Any one of several species of small herring which are commonly preserved in olive oil or in tins for food, especially the European sardine (Sardina pilchardus, syn. Clupea pilchardus). The American sardines of the Atlantic coast are mostly the young of the Atlantic herring and of the menhaden, and many canned sardines in America are sprats.
  2. noun Someone packed or crammed into a small space.
  3. verb To fish for sardines.

Full definition of sardine

Questions about sardine in a sentence

How do you use sardine in a sentence?
Sardine is used as a noun, verb and adjective. For example: “They feasted on premium sardines packed in olive oil, as did their hunting dogs, who insisted on joining the meal.”
What is a short sentence with sardine?
“The fish factory cans the sardines and mackerel.”
What does sardine mean?
Sardine means any one of several species of small herring which are commonly preserved in olive oil or in tins for food, especially the European sardine (Sardina pilchardus, syn. Clupea pilchardus). The American sardines of the Atlantic coast are mostly the young of the Atlantic herring and of the menhaden, and many canned sardines in America are sprats.

Source and license

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