How to use wallow in a sentence

33 example sentences · verb, noun, adjective

Wallow means to roll oneself about in something dirty, for example in mud. Example: “Pigs wallow in the mud.”

Examples of wallow by meaning

verbTo roll oneself about in something dirty, for example in mud.

Pigs wallow in the mud.

verbTo move lazily or heavily in any medium.

“A Hot Steam’s somebody who can’t get to heaven, just wallows around on lonesome roads an‘ if you walk through him, when you die you’ll be one too, an’ you’ll go around at night suckin‘ people’s breath-”1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC

verbTo immerse oneself in, to occupy oneself with, metaphorically.

She wallowed in her misery.
You can't get it into shape; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in.1918 February (date written), Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “Je ne parle pas français”, in Bliss and Other...
There the North British, having apparently decided that we had sufficiently wallowed in luxury, turned us out and loaded us into ancient four-wheelers, which were then attached to the rear of the night express (8.15 from Kings Cross).1957 July, M. D. Greville, “A Diamond Jubilee of Railway Memories”, in Railway Magazine, page 459

nounA pool of water or mud in which animals wallow, or the depression left by them in the ground.

Soon, the incessant wind would dry the stenchy wallow to corduroyed cement.2003, Suzann Ledbetter, A Lady Never Trifles with Thieves

More sentences with wallow

I was sitting in my room, wallowing in self pity, when my favorite TV program came on.From the entry self-pity
The Brits have been uniquely incompetent in wallowing in narcissistic irrelevance ever since the Brexit vote.2023 November 23, Peter Zeihan, “Ireland Needs a New Game Plan || Peter Zeihan”, in Zeihan on Geopolitics, sourced from YouTube, 2:55–3:14. From the entry NAFTA
Not by wallowing over what’s wrong, but by marching inexorably toward what’s right."2019 February 10, Elena Schneider, "Klobuchar jumps into presidential race". From the entry grandstanding
Leaving the world behind, I’d wallow in frosty solitude and chocolate torta.2012, Steven Parlato, The Namesake, Merit Press, Simon & Schuster, Inc., →ISBN. From the entry torta
Italy know they cannot wallow in the disappointment of last week's agonising near miss against Ireland.2011 February 11, Robert Kitson, “Six Nations 2011: Luke McLean happy to swap green and gold for blue”, in The Guardian, London. From the entry near miss
Then they began to wallow, swatting at each other with their wet-noodle trunks.2008, Caitlin O'Connell, The Elephant's Secret Sense: The Hidden Life of the Wild Herds of Africa, →ISBN. From the entry wet-noodle
There is a difference between entertaining mockery and low-class gutterdog wallowing.2001 April 12, Michael Brown, “Can you defer feats until you're a higher level?”, in rec.games.frp.dnd (Usenet). From the entry gutterdog
We stood on the bank of the dam surveying the squooshy wallow of mud.2000, Elizabeth Honey, William Clarke, Don't Pat the Wombat!. From the entry squooshy
They wallowed lazily, nibbling bits of sea grass, their dorsal fins sometimes cutting through the water, sharklike.1929, Robert Dean Frisbee, The Book of Puka-Puka, Eland, published 2019, page 125. From the entry sharklike
They could wallow in the long sedges therealong, and drink of the brook.1913, Theodore Winthrop, chapter XII, in The canoe and the saddle; or, Klalam and Klickatat, page 188. From the entry therealong
But she continued to wallow with little response.2014, Ranulph Fiennes, To the Ends of the Earth. From the entry reright
I risk becoming nothing more than a common poltergeist wallowing in regrets and introspection and other terrible things.2013, Kazerad, Aggy: Approach, in: Prequel -or- Making a Cat Cry: The Adventure (webcomic), November 22 2013. From the entry poltergeist
But I happily wallowed in my slanhood.2005 November 22, “Cliffy”, “My Students Can’t Name 3 First Amendment Rights: Sad or Normal?”, in Straight Dope Message Board, The…. From the entry slanhood
My Samithi Headquarters was not jeepable and one has to wallow across a small river to reach that place.2000, G. Surya Rao, Urban development with community initiatives: retrospect and prospect, page 103. From the entry jeepable
But the bath of self-pity, the wallow, the loathsome sticky-sweet pleasure of indulging it — that disgusts me.1961, CS Lewis, A Grief Observed. From the entry maudlin
The streets of Rangoon, wallowing in sun, flashed and scintillated with strolling crowds, skirted in their best silk longyis.1952, Norman Lewis, Golden Earth. From the entry scintillate
On the opposite bank was a fresh ’gator wallow.1938, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, chapter 24, in The Yearling, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, page 303. From the entry buttonwood
But he never bawled and pranced and wallowed in mud and came home in the arms of shouting larrikins.1938, Xavier Herbert, “Psychological Effect of a Solar Topee”, in Capricornia […], New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton-Century…. From the entry larrikin
A most devout man, he devours fruit salad like a herd of hippopotamoi wallowing in the Wallawalla River.1926, Keble Howard, Paradise Island: a Tale of a Shipwrecked Tweeny, page 16. From the entry hippopotamoi
Two old farts wallowing around like a couple of flipperless sea lions – no wonder they were killing themselves laughing back on shore.2008, Anne Barry, Never Say Old, page 29. From the entry flipperless
"She's wallowing in the sloughed excrudescence of my earthly self; she's gumming the punctured and bruised dermis of the hand that feeds."2006, Nancy K. Stade, 'The Desert Crop, page 354. From the entry excrudescence
“What, wallowing in loneliness?” asked Jane.1986, Orson Scott Card, “Speaker for the Dead”, in Ender’s War (Ender’s Game; 1–2), Book Club edition, New York, N.Y.: Tor Books, →OCLC…. From the entry lacrimose
In getting out of this I found it easier to wade down a shallow unfrozen stream than to wallow through deep snow.1915 April, Enos A. Mills, “In the Winter Snows”, in The Rocky Mountain Wonderland, Houghton Mifflin, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 259. From the entry unfrozen
That cruel order might have been carried out either by Dzhokhar Dudayev’s supporters, who have long wallowed in violence and crime, or by so-called “contractniks” of the federal forces.1995 [1995 July 14], Vladimir Yanchenkov, translated by Foreign Broadcast Information Service, “Chechnya: When Will the Troubled Night…. From the entry contractnik
The Santa Fe, called the Jerk Water route because they "jerked" water from ponds and wallows for the engine, still frayed out at the Kansas line.1954, Mari Sandoz, The Buffalo Hunters: The Story of the Hide Men, page 171. From the entry jerk water
There had been nothing about the heathens of China, India and Africa wallowing around on the heavenly chairs, nor ankling up and down the golden streets.1948, Zora Neale Hurston, chapter 1, in Seraph on the Suwanee, New York: HarperPerennial, published 1991, page 5. From the entry ankle
He says, 'Never wallow in the mud with a pig, because the pig likes it.' That is exactly what he wants, because you are on his home ground.1946, Richard Percival Calhoon, Moving ahead on your job, McGraw-Hill. From the entry wrestle with a pig

Meaning of wallow

verb To roll oneself about in something dirty, for example in mud.
verb To move lazily or heavily in any medium.
verb To immerse oneself in, to occupy oneself with, metaphorically.

Full definition of wallow

Questions about wallow in a sentence

How do you use wallow in a sentence?: Wallow is used as a verb, noun and adjective. For example: “Pigs wallow in the mud.”
What is a short sentence with wallow?: “Pigs wallow in the mud.”
What does wallow mean?: Wallow means to roll oneself about in something dirty, for example in mud.

Adapted from Wiktionary: wallow (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use wallow in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/wallow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.