shoehorn
Americannoun
-
shoehorns
plural
verb (used with object)
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of shoehorn
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.
See Examples For:
It is hard to shoehorn this spectacle of mass-integration, this enforced loss of crowns and kingdoms, into the idea of partition.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 30, 2026
"These subjects are not the easiest to shoehorn into a three-and-a-half minute song," says Lorde.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2025
Scott, as usual, also needs to shoehorn meaning that he doesn't know how to produce and erase history that he doesn't know how to replace.
From Salon ● Dec. 7, 2024
The sort of films that I feel capable of making, I don’t think I’d be particularly good at trying to shoehorn into something more sensible.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 6, 2024
Guides to English grammar were written as pedagogical steppingstones to mastery of Latin grammar, and they tried to shoehorn English constructions into the categories designed for Latin.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
Anthropic's advertisement broadcast during last week's Super Bowl showed a man asking advice from a conversational AI, which then shoehorns advertising copy for a dating site into its otherwise relevant response.
From Barron's ● Feb. 15, 2026
This has been a quality year — ergo, the following list, presented in random order, shoehorns 18 series into 10 more or less themed slots.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 3, 2024
It is a shame the film shoehorns so much of the book into two hours.
From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2022
The mighty Philharmonic is squeezing into halls built for smaller ensembles as it shoehorns its own performance schedule into the open windows it could find in the long-set schedules of other venues.
From New York Times ● Oct. 1, 2021
And so the film shoehorns in an almost admirably ludicrous explanation for her lack of regard for canine lives, which is to depict a trio of Dalmatians pushing her mother off a balcony.
From Washington Post ● May 28, 2021
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.
