Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use sprain in a sentence

18 example sentences · verb, noun

Sprain means to weaken, as a joint, ligament, or muscle, by sudden and excessive exertion, as by wrenching; to overstrain, or stretch injuriously, but without luxation. Example: “He sprained his knee after falling off the bicycle.”

Examples of sprain by meaning

verbTo weaken, as a joint, ligament, or muscle, by sudden and excessive exertion, as by wrenching; to overstrain, or...

  • He sprained his knee after falling off the bicycle.
  • Well, he sprained a giblet cornering a sharp coive the other day, uh, so, uh, I'm standing in for him.1963 June 8, Hare-Breadth Hurry, spoken by Bugs Bunny

nounThe act or result of spraining; lameness caused by spraining.

  • a bad sprain of the wrist

More sentences with sprain

  • Due to a left ankle sprain, the basketball player did not dress for the game against Indiana.From the entry dress
  • We're not talking about paper cuts or sprains here — we're talking about trauma.From the entry trauma
  • It was a cop-out to say he couldn't sign the petition because he sprained his wrist.From the entry cop-out
  • After he sprained his ankle, he walked away with a hurple.From the entry hurple
  • I think I sprained something on my latest exercise kick.From the entry kick
  • He held a cold compress over the sprain.From the entry compress
  • He has an ankle sprain and his status is day-to-day.From the entry day-to-day
  • His misplacement of his foot sprained his ankle.From the entry misplacement
  • The remaining sprains are eversion injuries, in which the foot turns out and the ankle turns in.1989 September 14, “HEALTH; Personal Health”, in New York Times. From the entry eversion
  • Tuck sustained a serious Lisfranc (midfoot) sprain that required surgery.2007 August 27, John Branch, “Giants’ Tuck Excels as Strahan’s Replacement”, in New York Times. From the entry midfoot
  • Ease down off boulders; a jump may jar or sprain.1915 April, Enos A. Mills, “Going to the Top”, in The Rocky Mountain Wonderland, Houghton Mifflin, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 18. From the entry ease
  • He waved them up and down to show that his throwing shoulder still operates despite a sprained acromioclavicular joint, or AC joint.2007 September 11, John Branch, “Eli Manning Could Sit Out Against Packers”, in New York Times. From the entry acromioclavicular joint
  • Anyone can suffer with a rotten tooth or a sprained ankle, but the man with kidney stones endures a superexcruciating kind of pain.1980, Daniel Lamont McDonald, The language of argument, →ISBN, page 249. From the entry superexcruciating
  • Injuries, which seemed to be of an inconsequential nature, were often sustained, such as a sprained ankle, a dislocated phalanx, a twisted foot, a corked leg and so on.2006, Joseph N. Santamaria, The Education of Dr Joe, page 60. From the entry cork
  • And if anyone in the Malay community has a sprain, a fractured or dislocated limb, or is plain tired, he or she immediately arranges for an urut.1978 November 1, Judith Holmberg, New Nation, page 10. From the entry urut

Meaning of sprain

  1. verb To weaken, as a joint, ligament, or muscle, by sudden and excessive exertion, as by wrenching; to overstrain, or stretch injuriously, but without luxation.
  2. noun The act or result of spraining; lameness caused by spraining.

Full definition of sprain

Questions about sprain in a sentence

How do you use sprain in a sentence?
Sprain is used as a verb and noun. For example: “He sprained his knee after falling off the bicycle.”
What is a short sentence with sprain?
“a bad sprain of the wrist”
What does sprain mean?
Sprain means to weaken, as a joint, ligament, or muscle, by sudden and excessive exertion, as by wrenching; to overstrain, or stretch injuriously, but without luxation.

Source and license

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