Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use trail in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun

Trail means to follow behind (someone or something); to tail (someone or something). Example: “The hunters trailed their prey deep into the woods.”

Examples of trail by meaning

verbTo follow behind (someone or something); to tail (someone or something).

  • The hunters trailed their prey deep into the woods.
  • Nine months before she was taken in October 1994, Jodi was out jogging in Mason City before realizing she was being trailed.2026 August 10, Nicholas Muhoro, “Jodi Huisentruit, 27, Vanished From Her Apartment Parking Lot in 1995. Police Found Signs of a Struggle”...

verbTo drag (something) behind on the ground.

  • You'll get your coat all muddy if you trail it around like that.
  • "I saw your brother—I saw your brother," he said, nodding his head, as Archer lagged past him, trailing his spade, and scowling at the old gentleman in spectacles.1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC...

verbTo leave (a trail of).

  • He walked into the house, soaking wet, and trailed water all over the place.

verbTo show a trailer of (a film, TV show etc.); to release or publish a preview of (a report etc.) in advance of the full...

  • His new film was trailed on TV last night.
  • There were no surprises in this morning's much-trailed budget statement.

verbTo hang or drag loosely behind; to move with a slow sweeping motion.

  • The bride's long dress trailed behind her as she walked down the aisle.
  • Her curly hair trailed along her shoulders and down her back.

verbTo run or climb like certain plants.

  • The flowers glowed red and golden: snapdragons and sunflowers, and nasturtians trailing all over the turf walls and peeping in at the round windows.1954 July 29, J.R.R. Tolkien, “I: A Long-Expected Party”, in The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings; 1), →ISBN

verbTo drag oneself lazily or reluctantly along.

  • Our parents marched to church and we trailed behind.

verbTo be losing, to be behind in a competition.

  • Neil Lennon and his players have, in almost no time at all, roared back from trailing Rangers by 15 points in November to ending the year two points clear.2011 December 29, Keith Jackson, “SPL: Celtic 1 Rangers 0”, in Daily Record

More sentences with trail

  • My eye struck a strange word in the text. They soon struck the trail.From the entry strike
  • The player left the rest of the field trailing in her wake.From the entry wake
  • The hunters found deer sign at the end of the trail.From the entry sign
  • After a week on the trail without a mirror, my hair was wild and dirty.From the entry wild
  • The peculiarity of meeting six people on a usually deserted trail only struck me later on.From the entry peculiarity
  • It's time for me to hit the trail and be on my way.From the entry hit the trail
  • Keep a good paper trail in case anyone asks you why you arrived at that conclusion.From the entry paper trail
  • We don't want to blaze a trail when we can imitate something that has already been done.From the entry blaze a trail
  • There's no trail going through. We can't get around to the lake.From the entry get around
  • I don't know about any trails for cycling because I'm mainly a roadie.From the entry roadie
  • To either side there are beautiful views from the trail along the ridgeline.From the entry ridgeline
  • There have been several false steps made on the campaign trail, none tragic.From the entry false step
  • The losing candidate was just glad to put it behind him after months on the campaign trail.From the entry put something behind one
  • The trail is hikeable in summer, but sometimes covered by floodwaters in the winter.From the entry hikeable
  • Fortunately, I found a blazoned trail that led me back to a major road.From the entry blazoned trail
  • It’s important to brush out the north trails before the spring.From the entry brush out
  • He will leave a trail of destruction after him.From the entry after
  • It's time to break a trail through the park.From the entry break
  • The hiker’s shoelace snapped halfway up the trail.From the entry shoelace
  • Can you sed out those trailing spaces, please?From the entry sed
  • The trail was unnavigable since the flood washed it away.From the entry unnavigable
  • The hounds cast about for the fox's trail.From the entry cast about
  • Tech stocks trailed behind the overall market today.From the entry trail behind
  • The yellow blazes denote the trail.From the entry denote
  • Trailing diamond sprays of ice, he glissades fearlessly across snowfields that plunge into blue infinity.2026 February 27, Paul Salopek, “Hazard Cascade”, in National Geographic. From the entry gird
  • Trump used on the campaign trail – is that America is a deeply, angrily, unstably divided country.2024 November 7, Ned Temko, “With Trump, ‘America First’ is back. US allies brace for a shock.”, in The Christian Science Monitor. From the entry angrily
  • My students laugh because we’ll spend three hours on a trail and only travel a mile.2024 April 3, Brady Nash, quoting Scott Dean, “A North Carolina naturalist’s tips for spotting springtime blooms”, in Atlanta, retrieved…. From the entry wildflowering
  • On the campaign trail, Zelenskiy pledged to clean up Ukraine’s oligarch-dominated ruling system.2021 October 3, “Revealed: ‘anti-oligarch’ Ukrainian president’s offshore connections”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 13…. From the entry oligarch

Meaning of trail

  1. verb To follow behind (someone or something); to tail (someone or something).
  2. verb To drag (something) behind on the ground.
  3. verb To leave (a trail of).

Full definition of trail

Questions about trail in a sentence

How do you use trail in a sentence?
Trail is used as a verb and noun. For example: “The hunters trailed their prey deep into the woods.”
What is a short sentence with trail?
“The yellow blazes denote the trail.”
What does trail mean?
Trail means to follow behind (someone or something); to tail (someone or something).

Source and license

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