Canute
Americannoun
noun
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But it may be a King Canute effort of fighting the tide of rising longer-term yields worldwide.
From Barron's ● Dec. 12, 2025
Canute knew that reality was bigger than he or any idea he had.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 26, 2023
“Not even if I could. I might as well be King Canute, forbidding the tide to come in.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2023
By 2015, the old gatekeepers had entered a kind of crisis of confidence, believing they couldn’t control the online news cycle any better than King Canute could control the tides.
From New York Times ● Oct. 25, 2020
Canute was in England with a good army, but his forces doubtless had decreased in numbers since the landing in the previous August, and further shrinkage was inevitable.
From Canute the Great The Rise of Danish Imperialism during the Viking Age by Laurence Marcellus Larson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.