Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use shade in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Shade means darkness where light, particularly sunlight, is blocked. Example: “The old oak tree gave shade in the heat of the day.”

Examples of shade by meaning

nounDarkness where light, particularly sunlight, is blocked.

  • The old oak tree gave shade in the heat of the day.
  • Temps rose to a sweltering 40 degrees Celsius in the shade.

nounSomething that blocks light, particularly in a window.

  • Close the shade, please: it's too bright in here.
  • Also, people with darker skin tend to have lower blood levels of vitamin D because the pigment (melanin) acts like a shade, reducing production of vitamin D (and also reducing damaging effects of sunlight on skin, including skin cancer).2023 March, “Vitamin D”, in Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

nounA variety of a color, in particular one obtained by adding black (compare tint).

  • I've painted my room in five lovely shades of pink and chartreuse.
  • Speaking of round sunglasses, these lightweight polarized ones and come in two shades of tortoiseshell as well as black and bronze.2023 June 26, Lauren Caruso and Jillian Tracy, “The 22 best sunglasses for summer, according to style experts”, in CNN

nounA subtle variation in a concept.

  • shades of meaning
  • These performances, which include plenty of great one-liners and physical gags but also unearth subtler shades of frustration and self-doubt, are some of my favorites of hers.2026 January 30, Judy Berman, “Catherine O’Hara Portrayed the Vain and Delusional With a Radical Lack of Vanity”, in TIME, archived from...

nounAn aspect that is reminiscent of something.

  • shades of Groucho Marx

nounA very small degree of a quantity, or variety of meaning.

  • That is a shade too close.
  • Petherick's careful language) was perhaps just a shade of a hypochondriac, had retired to bed immediately after dinner.1934, Agatha Christie, Miss Marple Tells a Story

nounA ghost or specter; a spirit.

  • Too long have I been haunted by that shade.
  • The adventurer was attacked by a shade.
  • In the silence, that's when the shades come crowding around, asking for love, asking for blood, longing to keep me in Hades surrounded by shades of loss and desire, denial and self-hatred.1986, Reginald Shepherd, “On Not Being White”, in Joseph Beam, editor, In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology, page 48

nounSubtle insults.

  • Why did you paint your room chartreuse? No shade; I'm genuinely curious.
  • Shade is: "I don't tell you you're ugly, but I don't have to tell you because you know you're ugly." And that's shade.1990, Jennie Livingston, director, Paris Is Burning, spoken by Dorian Corey
  • In a recent interview with Pitchfork, Carey offered her explanation for how the moment of shade came about.2018 November 29, Lisa Respers France, “Mariah Carey’s legendary Jennifer Lopez shade was her ‘trying to be nice’”, in CNN

More sentences with shade

  • They spelled the horses and rested in the shade of some trees near a brook.From the entry spell
  • He gave his daughter some hyacinth bulbs with the caveat that she plant them in the shade.From the entry caveat
  • I tried mixing more white paint to get a lighter shade.From the entry try
  • After locking the door and closing the shades, they lit the joint.From the entry joint
  • Red and blue are different colors, but two shades of scarlet are different tints.From the entry tint
  • Well, you painted my room the wrong shade of blue, but (there was) no harm done really.From the entry no harm done
  • His achloropsia meant he could not distinguish light and dark shades of green.From the entry achloropsia
  • No tea no shade, I do not like your hair today.From the entry no tea, no shade
  • My new dress is a wonderful shade of pink.From the entry pink
  • The new leaflets at the end of the branch were a lighter shade of green than the mature leaves.From the entry leaflet
  • This shade of red doesn't go with the drapes.From the entry go
  • That's a very deep shade of blue.From the entry deep
  • Being near running water and good shade, the explorers decided it was a good locale for setting up camp.From the entry locale
  • We found some shade under a tree.From the entry under
  • Underneath all that soot, dirt and grime is the true beauty of the church in soft shades of sandstone.From the entry grime
  • His shades are by some famous designer.From the entry shades
  • I'd like three lipsticks in this shade.From the entry lipstick
  • The garden was full of blossoms that blushed in myriad shades to form a beautiful carpet of color.From the entry blush
  • I prefer a lighter shade of pink.From the entry lighter
  • We moved out of the shade and into the sunshine.From the entry sunshine
  • I'll just laze in the shade with a book.From the entry laze
  • It says here not to drive with the sun shade covering the windshield of your car. No duh!From the entry no duh
  • The rimed window permitted only shades of the traffic outside.From the entry rimed

Meaning of shade

  1. noun Darkness where light, particularly sunlight, is blocked.
  2. noun Something that blocks light, particularly in a window.
  3. noun A variety of a color, in particular one obtained by adding black (compare tint).

Full definition of shade

Questions about shade in a sentence

How do you use shade in a sentence?
Shade is used as a noun and verb. For example: “The old oak tree gave shade in the heat of the day.”
What is a short sentence with shade?
“shades of meaning”
What does shade mean?
Shade means darkness where light, particularly sunlight, is blocked.

Source and license

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