Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use struggle in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Struggle means a contortion of the body in an attempt to escape or to perform a difficult task. Example: “During the centuries, the people of Ireland struggled constantly to assert their right to govern themselves.”

Examples of struggle by meaning

nounStrife, contention, great effort.

  • The struggle with ways and means had recommenced, more difficult now a hundredfold than it had been before, because of their increasing needs.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
  • Moskowitz charges cisgender readers to be as conscious and deliberate with our religious identities as transgender and gender non-conforming people are with theirs, arguing that holiness is only achieved through continuous and unrelenting struggle and change.2019, Rachel Timoner, “Book Review: Textual Activism by Rabbi Mike Moskowitz”, in Tikkun

verbTo strive, to labour in difficulty, to fight (for or against), to contend.

  • During the centuries, the people of Ireland struggled constantly to assert their right to govern themselves.
  • England were ponderous with ball in hand, their runners static when taking the ball and their lines obvious, while their front row struggled badly in the scrum.2011 October 1, Tom Fordyce, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland”, in BBC Sport
  • Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic who still resists the idea that something drastic needs to happen for him to turn his life around.2013 June 28, Joris Luyendijk, “Our banks are out of control”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 3, page 21

verbTo have difficulty with something.

  • One of the doctor’s patients struggled with depression.
  • Only after recognizing them individually can we begin to try to understand them, to struggle with perceiving what they mean.1972, Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 17

verbTo strive, or to make efforts, with a twisting, or with contortions of the body.

  • She struggled to escape from her assailant's grasp.

More sentences with struggle

  • The cultural struggle is for the survival of family values against all manner of atheistic amorality.From the entry family
  • He struggled to balance his family life, social life and work life.From the entry life
  • She was struggling with the groceries, so I offered to help.From the entry help
  • In climates where grass struggles to grow, turf is usually used instead on sports fields.From the entry turf
  • The retail giant is set to acquire two more struggling high-street chains.From the entry giant
  • I struggled up the hill with the heavy load in my rucksack.From the entry load
  • During the interwar period, fascists proposed class collaboration as a response to communist class struggle.From the entry collaboration
  • We're coming out for the campaign and for all the struggling people out there.From the entry come out
  • The movement towards a peaceful settlement has been a long and arduous political struggle.From the entry arduous
  • She became more and more vexed as she struggled to cope with the demands of the job.From the entry vexed
  • He struggled with sentencing his frayed and angry verses from poem to prose.From the entry sentencing
  • The children struggled in their Welsh lessons because they didn't have any experience of foreign languages.From the entry foreign language
  • I felt each flutter of the lawnmower as it struggled to start.From the entry flutter
  • The President is struggling to maintain his government with only a wafer-thin majority in the lower house.From the entry wafer-thin
  • We sat tensely in the courtroom while the mano-a-mano struggle ensued between the two skilled lawyers.From the entry mano a mano
  • She spends most of her time in-servicing teachers in helping struggling students.From the entry in-service
  • The pitcher is struggling to throw strikes but there's no room at the inn.From the entry no room at the inn
  • Many immigrants struggle to adapt themselves to the culture of the host country.From the entry host country
  • I struggle to put to words the seething, undying hatred that I feel for you.From the entry put to words
  • Edgar Allan Poe was a self-declared Polonophile and an admirer of Poland's struggle for regaining independence.From the entry Polonophile
  • The fact that you struggle to do your homework proves that you need to go to tutoring.From the entry the fact that
  • Struggle, disappointment, and criticism all contribute to a person's growth.From the entry growth
  • She struggled to play the difficult passages.From the entry passage
  • The lecturer would drop hints whenever the students struggled.From the entry drop
  • People struggled to cope with the ever-increasing cost of living.From the entry ever
  • The horse struggled at that fence, but it's over.From the entry over
  • The struggle didn't end, nor was it diminished.From the entry nor
  • My feet were firmly lodged in the quicksand, and the more I struggled the more I sank into it.From the entry quicksand
  • The gun went off during their struggle.From the entry go off
  • He struggled with severe acne during his teenage years.From the entry acne
  • She struggled to maintain her composure under pressure.From the entry maintain
  • I struggled to come up with a prompt that would give me the exact image I had in mind.From the entry prompt

Meaning of struggle

  1. noun A contortion of the body in an attempt to escape or to perform a difficult task.
  2. noun Strife, contention, great effort.
  3. verb To strive, to labour in difficulty, to fight (for or against), to contend.

Full definition of struggle

Questions about struggle in a sentence

How do you use struggle in a sentence?
Struggle is used as a noun and verb. For example: “During the centuries, the people of Ireland struggled constantly to assert their right to govern themselves.”
What is a short sentence with struggle?
“She struggled to play the difficult passages.”
What does struggle mean?
Struggle means a contortion of the body in an attempt to escape or to perform a difficult task.

Source and license

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