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.

It’s good that the bar at Itsumono is a fine hangout, because as the place fills up you will hang out, with waits between drinks protracting even with two barkeeps at work.

From Seattle Times • Mar. 2, 2023

Protrac′tion, act of protracting or prolonging: the delaying of the termination of a thing: the plotting or laying down of the dimensions of anything on paper.—adj.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 3 of 4: N-R) by Various

“I am already half drowned, and it is only protracting my sufferings.”

From Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy A weird series of tales of shipwreck and disaster, from the earliest part of the century to the present time, with accounts of providential escapes and heart-rending fatalities. by Anonymous

—The opposite extreme of the protracting of Education beyond its proper time is necessarily the undue hastening of the Emancipation.—The question whether one is prepared for freedom has been often opened in politics.

From Pedagogics as a System by Brackett, Anna C. (Anna Callender)

They would talk for the mere purpose of protracting litigation, injure their clients by vexations and bootless delays, and do their work so that they might be fed for doing it again.

From A Book About Lawyers by Jeaffreson, John Cordy