Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use topple in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun

Topple means to push or throw over. Example: “The massed crowds toppled the statue of the former dictator.”

Examples of topple by meaning

verbTo push or throw over.

  • The massed crowds toppled the statue of the former dictator.

verbTo overthrow something.

  • to topple one's rival
  • He now confronts the daunting endeavor of toppling a former president whose belligerence and loyal base of support have discouraged most leading Republicans — including, up to now, Mr.2023 May 24, Nicholas Nehamas, “Ron DeSantis Joins 2024 Race, Hoping to Topple Trump”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

verbTo totter and fall, or to lean as if about to do so.

  • The pile of pennies began to topple.

More sentences with topple

  • We gave one more heave and the wall toppled over at last.From the entry heave
  • The grandfather clock toppled back and crashed to the ground.From the entry back
  • The grandfather clock toppled forward and crashed to the ground.From the entry forward
  • The grandfather clock toppled backward and crashed to the ground.From the entry backward
  • It has the power to topple governments and yet leaves no trace of doing so.2016, Thomas Corfield, The Alchemists Of Vra, Panda Books Australia, →ISBN. From the entry pedantics
  • He toppled flat on his back, air releasing from his lungs in a gasped rush.2010, Kelly Meding, As Lie the Dead. From the entry nail bat
  • If the Soviet missile were toppled, would it still go off if it hit sidewise or tailwise?1982, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Armed Services, Research and development, Title II, page 1216. From the entry tailwise
  • Then slowly it toppled over backwards and fell with a splintering crash of coachwork and glass.1953, Ian Fleming, “The Crawling of the Skin”, in Casino Royale, London: Pan Books, published 1955, page 110. From the entry coachwork
  • Usually, the mispiled objects fell or the inadequately placed objects toppled over and struck workmen.1953, BLS Report, page 23. From the entry mispile
  • "It's all right," Joey startled him by announcing, toppling his tower of parcels into the cart.1919, Israel Zangwill, Jinny the Carrier: A Folk-comedy of Rural England. From the entry inquiration
  • My friends, we have toppled a political dynasty.2025 November 5, Zohran Mamdani, “The Full Transcript of Zohran Mamdani’s Victory Speech”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New…. From the entry dynasty
  • The cake slices were toppled and mushed, mostly uneaten.2021, Hermione Hoby, Virtue, New York, N.Y.: Riverhead Books, →ISBN, page 97. From the entry cake slice
  • Her speech, too, was powerful but stateswomanlike, as she reflected on the need to topple the UPA government.2014, Rajdeep Sardesai, 2014: The Election that Changed India, Penguin Books, →ISBN. From the entry stateswomanlike
  • He toppled backward, landing on a particularly large cholla and crying out as hundreds of stickers pierced his flesh.2013, Cathy McDavid, Cowboy for Keeps, Harlequin, →ISBN, page 118. From the entry sticker
  • First, they call for gratitude to the courageous women and men who nonviolently toppled dictators and tumbled walls.2010, Anne Montgomery, “Resistance to U.S. Massacre in Iraq”, in Arthur J. Laffin, Anne Montgomery, editors, Swords into Plowshares. From the entry beat one's swords into ploughshares
  • Was there a toppling of the Alliance government?2006 August 22, “Life in the 'verse AFTER the BDM”, in alt.tv.firefly (Usenet). From the entry 'verse
  • Bo sat on the sprung branch of a toppled lancewood.2002, Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country, Allen & Unwin, published 2003, page 40. From the entry lancewood
  • If his father miswielded his crutch and accidentally toppled the water bucket, Revas swore he'd left the pail in the way.1995, Arnette Lamb, Carolyn Tolley, Maiden of Inverness, page 2. From the entry miswield
  • She was a tall girl and county, with Hilary's walk: she seemed to topple even when she sat.1979, John Le Carré, Smiley's People, Folio Society, published 2010, page 274. From the entry county
  • In order to topple the dictatorship of the proletariat, they can only resort to pursuing splittism and intriguing and conspiring.1976 October 22 [1976 October 20], “Taiyuan Meeting Pledges Unity Around CCPCC”, in Daily Report: People's Republic of China, volume I…. From the entry Yangchu
  • But Boss being Boss could not resist the pictures in his head of toppled portalets, busted light towers, and flat tires across the site.2018, Ted Bernard, Late-K Lunacy: A Novel, Petra Books, →ISBN, page 283. From the entry portalet
  • The speed and her heavy pack threatened her balance, but she caught herself before succumbing to an embarrassing nose-first topple to the earth.2013, Lindsay Buroker, Conspiracy: The Emperor's Edge. From the entry nose-first
  • A few racks of flowers toppled.2010 [1979], Cormac McCarthy, Suttree, reprint edition, Knopf Doubleday, →ISBN, pages 153-154. From the entry spadeload
  • Schliemann misgrabbed his cup to toast the deal, and its toppled plastic cylinder rolled spillessly from side to side in the valley of his tray.2007, Geoff Wyss, Tiny Clubs, page 116. From the entry misgrab
  • A toppled snow gum blocks the track and Jack stands aside while M hacks a step into both sides of the giant log.1999, Julia Leigh, The Hunter, Faber & Faber 2012, p. 16. From the entry snow gum
  • A hemispheric axiom has it that when a dictator falls afoul of Washington, his opponents are emboldened to try to topple him.1957 December 15, “Still in Business”, in Time. From the entry afoul
  • Just below it leaned a tottering crag that would have toppled, starting an avalanche on an acclivity where no sliding mass could stop.1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 8, in Riders of the Purple Sage […], New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC. From the entry acclivity
  • And last year, at 5:26 a.m. on August 10, a whole mountainside toppled into the tideline of the shrunken Sawyer Glacier, not far from the Alaskan capital, Juneau.2026 February 27, Paul Salopek, “Hazard Cascade”, in National Geographic. From the entry jet
  • We analyzed data from continuous ambient vibration monitoring and concomitant crack aperture measurements at the Courthouse Mesa instability, a large toppling sandstone slab in Utah, USA.2024 June 27, Erin K. Jensen, Jeffrey Moore, et al, “Combined ambient vibration and surface displacement measurements for improved…. From the entry toppling
  • One problem that you may encounter with your African milk tree is that because of their height and small root structure, these plants have a tendency to topple over.2017 September 14, Maaike Koster, Emma Sibley, “Euphorbia trigona”, in Urban Botanics: An Indoor Plant Guide for Modern Gardeners, Quarto…. From the entry African milk tree
  • After stuffing themselves and their clients full of dodgy mortgages at bogus prices with shoddy assertions of safety, many of the world's biggest banks toppled when housing prices fell.2015, Jason Zweig, The Devil's Financial Dictionary, PublicAffairs, →ISBN, page 1. From the entry earn
  • China’s official Xinhua news agency said the deaths occurred when two primary schools toppled in Liangping county of Chongqing, a municipality of 30 million that neighbours Sichuan.2008 May 12, Lindsay Beck, Guo Shipeng, Darren Schuettler, “China quake kills 5 children, injures over 100”, in Reuters, archived from the…. From the entry Liangping
  • It is an art which topples greatness, undermines pretension and punishes pride by revealing the low in the pretendedly high, the filth in the pure, the folly in reason.2003, Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason, Ch.9, at p.148. From the entry satire
  • It was Harris's lot to be a nearly man: a man nearly educated, nearly employed, nearly criminal, but never really toppling the edges to be labelled.2000, David Brian Plummer, Lepus: The Story of a Hare, page 42. From the entry nearly man
  • Outler had dashed some thirty feet when a shell upblasted mud and water in his face, and he slipped and toppled headforemost down a steep bank into a pond.1958, William T. Rochelle, Zareeba Purpose, page 105. From the entry upblast
  • Kings, who remain in many respects the representatives of a vanished world, solitary pinnacles that topple over the rising waste of waters under which the past lies buried.1900, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 2, page 55. From the entry pinnacle

Meaning of topple

  1. verb To push or throw over.
  2. verb To overturn.
  3. verb To overthrow something.

Full definition of topple

Questions about topple in a sentence

How do you use topple in a sentence?
Topple is used as a verb and noun. For example: “The massed crowds toppled the statue of the former dictator.”
What is a short sentence with topple?
“to topple one's rival”
What does topple mean?
Topple means to push or throw over.

Source and license

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