Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use tame in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, verb

Tame means under human control. Example: “The lion was quite tame.”

Examples of tame by meaning

adjectiveDocile or tranquil towards humans.

  • The lion was quite tame.

adjectiveNot exciting.

  • This party is too tame for me.
  • For a thriller, that film was really tame.
  • So the implication there is that even 12-year-olds in France will find the movie tame.2015 February 15, “Tobacco”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 2, episode 2, John Oliver (actor), via HBO

verbTo make or become tame; to domesticate (an animal).

  • He tamed the wild horse.
  • Tambourines are shy birds and do not tame easily.2006, Gayle Soucek, Doves, page 78
  • Richard Wrangham has noted that the domestication of animals usually tames them by slowing down components of the developmental timetable to retain juvenile traits into adulthood, a process called pedomorphy or neoteny.2011, Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Penguin, published 2012, page 744

verbTo make submissive.

  • The governor tames the engine.

verbTo take control of something that is unruly.

  • Police have to tame the riots.

More sentences with tame

  • She loved taming horses on Saturday.From the entry horse
  • A tame automorphism is a product of elementary automorphisms, and a non-tame automorphism is called wild.2014, Alexei Belov, Leonid Bokut, Louis Rowen, Jie-Tai Yu, “The Jacobian Conjecture, Together with Specht and Burnside-Type Problems”, in…. From the entry automorphism
  • She never quite succeeded in taming the animals: two squirrels, a fox, and a ring-tailed civet cat.2013, Judith Carrington, Juanita Herff Drought Chipman, editors, Eda & Ilse: Domestic Life of Privileged 19th to 20th Century Women…. From the entry ring-tailed civet cat
  • Victor says yes, because they're adorable and— according to the neighbors—are quite tame.2012 April 17, Jenny Lawson, Let's Pretend This Never Happened, →ISBN. From the entry -en
  • This woman – endlessly stimulable, endlessly desiring – is what he tries to tame.2012, Katherine Angel, Unmastered, Penguin, published 2014, page 127. From the entry stimulable
  • Tayras can be tamed and make interesting but fairly destructive pets.2010, Carlos L. de la Rosa, Claudia C. Nocke, A Guide to the Carnivores of Central America, unnumbered page. From the entry tayra
  • But it is the beer's mouthpuckeringly sour body that helps separate it from tamer summer seasonals.2010, Andy Crouch, Great American Craft Beer: A Guide to the Nation's Finest Beers and Breweries, Philadelphia, P.A.: Running Press…. From the entry mouth-puckeringly
  • "I was a wild child," she said, sounding devilish, "never did get tamed.2005, Joan Anderson, A Walk on the Beach: Tales Of Wisdom From An Unconventional Woman. From the entry wild child
  • The mallards, who had been joined by one black duck, grew tamer as well.2001, Anne Batterson, The Black Swan. From the entry swanly
  • On the mantelshelf either side of the clock stood two lacquered bronzes of horse and tamer.1998, Derek Beaven, chapter 9, in Acts of Mutiny, London: Fourth Estate, →ISBN, part 1 (Motion), page 34. From the entry bronze
  • Catwalk is just a celluloid fanzine, a 95-minute authorised industry fame-fest that is tame and predictable.1996 May 16, Anna Maria Dell’oso, “Homage to hips and lips”, in The Sydney Morning Herald, page 14. From the entry in-joky
  • Alexander succeeded in taming Bucephalus by turning him towards the sun and by coaxing him very gently.1994, Gabriele Groschner, Johann Michael Rottmayr, Johann Michael Rottmayer: Barock in Salzburg. From the entry skitty
  • Think you have what it takes to tame a novice SAM?1991 February 4, “Butch In The Streets.... (personal advertisement)”, in Gay Community News, volume 18, number 28, page 13. From the entry sam
  • It is never Kālī who tames Śiva but Śiva who must becalm Kālī.1986, David R. Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition, published 1988, page 122. From the entry kali
  • But I don’t use the spurs, once my steed is tame,” he argued.1982, Piers Anthony, Night Mare, New York, N.Y.: Del Rey Books, page 100. From the entry dragonfire
  • There was nothing in the show that tried to tame it down, somehow make it more sellable.1977 February 12, Don Shewey, John Glines, “Theatre Profiles Part II”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 33, page 9. From the entry sellable
  • He wondered if anyone had tried to tame her since Gerin died.1970, Simon Harvester, Moscow Road, New York, N.Y.: Walker and Company, published 1971, →ISBN, page 86. From the entry snow leopardess
  • We are faced with micronationalisms that need be tamed, micronations that will have to be organized.1961, Mamadou Dia, translated by Mercer Cook, The African Nations and World Solidarity, Frederick A. Praeger, →ISBN, page 143. From the entry micronation
  • He will give you a job—taming his women and killing for him.1957, Ian Fleming, chapter 17, in From Russia With Love. From the entry gajo
  • There goes a lord who tamed a wild shieldmaiden of the North!1955, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, →ISBN, page 262. From the entry shieldmaiden
  • “Here thou beholdest,” answered she, “Lord Zigg, the far-famed tamer of horses.1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 5. From the entry far-famed
  • The conversation about the video game Hogwarts Legacy has been dominated by social issues rather than spell casting or Hippogriff taming.2023 February 9, Julia Jacobs, “Hogwarts Legacy Can’t Cast Aside Debate Over J.K. Rowling”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New…. From the entry spell casting
  • I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.2017 September 22, Kim Jong Un, quotee, “Statement of Chairman of State Affairs Commission of DPRK”, in KCNA Watch. From the entry dotard
  • The “tame automorphism problem” asks whether any automorphism is tame.2014, Alexei Belov, Leonid Bokut, Louis Rowen, Jie-Tai Yu, “The Jacobian Conjecture, Together with Specht and Burnside-Type Problems”, in…. From the entry automorphism
  • Yer a true tamer of the high seas!2004, Intelligent Systems, translated by Nintendo of America, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Nintendo, GameCube, level/area: Rogueport. From the entry tamer
  • They play Scottish bagpipes, Breton binioux (that’s like a less tamed version of the Egyptian howlpipes) and drums.2000 May 6, “Sue Quick”, “Re: sonneurs de cornemuses”, in rec.music.folk (Usenet). From the entry binioux
  • This might be tamed someday to form glider guns or puffers, as the B-heptomino in Life has been.1994 May 7, David Bell, “HighLife - An Interesting Variant of Life (part 3/3)”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet). From the entry B-heptomino
  • First you show us a herd of tame elephants, then you get all spooky about a puddle of dirty water.1978, Hugh Gantzer, Flashpoint!, Vikas, →ISBN, page 69, →ISBN. From the entry whom're
  • As it turned out, the prairie was not an easy land to tame, the way it looked at first.1956, Holger Cahill, The Shadow of my Hand, Harcourt Brace, page 64. From the entry elbow juice
  • A world so tamed sounds utopian now.1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 27. From the entry utopian
  • O’Brien tames a horse, his objective, saves the ranch and gets the girl while Kelly, sacrificingly, rides off.1935 January 26, “G.” [pseudonym], “Motion Picture Daily’s Hollywood Preview: ‘When a Man’s a Man’”, in Martin Quigley, editor, Motion…. From the entry sacrificingly

Meaning of tame

  1. adjective Under human control.
  2. adjective Docile or tranquil towards humans.
  3. adjective Of a person, well-behaved; not radical or extreme.

Full definition of tame

Questions about tame in a sentence

How do you use tame in a sentence?
Tame is used as an adjective and verb. For example: “The lion was quite tame.”
What is a short sentence with tame?
“He tamed the wild horse.”
What does tame mean?
Tame means under human control.

Source and license

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