How to Use ruin in a Sentence

ruin

1 of 2 verb
Definition of ruinnext
Synonyms for ruinnext
  • The scandal ruined the mayor.
  • The bad weather ruined the party.
  • I ruined the sauce by adding too much garlic.
  • He was ruined by debt.
  • His low test scores ruined his chances of getting into a good school.
  • Poor customer service ruined the company's reputation.
  • Rescuers worked through the night to find survivors buried in the dusty ruins.
    — Sam Metz and Mosa’ab Eishamy, The Christian Science Monitor, 9 Sep. 2023
  • It won’t get ruined in the wash either—just make sure to line-dry the staple.
    — Andie Kanaras, Southern Living, 4 Oct. 2023
  • Spare me how the ambience was ruined when Mount Davis blocked the view of the Oakland hills.
    — Jerry McDonald, The Mercury News, 12 Apr. 2024
  • Didn’t get the job done today and ruined one of Cole’s great outings.
    — Jaylon Thompson, Kansas City Star, 14 Apr. 2024
  • But oftentimes, the smoke that comes with a campfire gets in the way and can ruin a good time.
    — Amanda Ogle, Southern Living, 16 Oct. 2023
  • The setback ruined what had been an unblemished record at home for the Tigers.
    — Edward Lee, Baltimore Sun, 8 Feb. 2024
  • Eaton said the bones of the Montpelier building are fine, but the equipment was ruined.
    — Ellie Wolfe, BostonGlobe.com, 16 July 2023
  • Available in toddler and big kid sizes, the hoodie is preshrunk, so it won't get ruined in the wash.
    — Maya Polton, Parents, 18 Mar. 2024
  • Greasy hair and an oily scalp can ruin even the best of good hair days, and sometimes even your go-to dry shampoo won’t help.
    — Danielle Sinay, Glamour, 5 Oct. 2023
  • Visitors can wander around the temple ruins for a unique look at how this part of the world used to be.
    — Meagan Drillinger, Travel + Leisure, 8 Sep. 2023
  • Their mother had left the brothers her house, but when the big freeze hit Texas in 2021, the pipes burst and ruined everything.
    — Steve Hartman, CBS News, 18 Aug. 2023
  • Sherman told staffers that holes were going to ruin the sketch.
    — Brian Steinberg, Variety, 30 Nov. 2023
  • The water was about 3 1/2 feet deep inside the store, ruining many books and fixtures.
    — Lisa Rathke, Chicago Tribune, 12 July 2023
  • Chrissy Teigen is not one to let her hairstyle ruin her mood.
    — Alexis Jones, Peoplemag, 24 June 2023
  • Even talking about the voice cast (which is fantastic) would start to ruin a few things.
    — Paul Tassi, Forbes, 13 Nov. 2023
  • The woman who taught me piano told us her lettuces had been ruined.
    — Matthew Gavin Frank, Harper's Magazine, 21 June 2023
  • And then Celine came along with this script that just sort of ruined everything.
    — Yvonne Villarreal, Los Angeles Times, 21 Dec. 2023
  • Nothing ruins your morning quite like a glimpse of your bedhead in the mirror.
    — Clara McMahon, Peoplemag, 14 Nov. 2023
  • If your laptop is ruined by rain pouring in from a hole in the roof, you can get reimbursed.
    — Karen Garcia, Los Angeles Times, 22 Aug. 2023
  • But if the billiard balls are disturbed along the way, the delicate arrangement would be ruined, and the trick would fail.
    — Jennifer Ouellette and Sean M. Carroll, Ars Technica, 24 Nov. 2023
  • Except his costar, a brand-new-to-the-scene Instagram celebrity, might just ruin it all.
    — USA TODAY, 11 Aug. 2023
  • Would be a shame to ruin a perfectly great recipe by adding sugar.
    — Southern Living Test Kitchen, Southern Living, 17 Dec. 2023
  • Watch the video above to learn how to easily clean hats without ruining them.
    — Maryal Miller Carter, USA TODAY, 30 Aug. 2023
  • Decay has set in, and that’s why this place has started to ruin because the effects of time are taking place.
    — Brian Davids, The Hollywood Reporter, 23 Oct. 2023
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ruin

2 of 2 noun
  • The castle is now a ruin.
  • The abandoned town had gone to ruin.
  • Her drug addiction brought her to the brink of ruin.
  • The incident led to the ruin of their relationship.
  • Don't let the house your grandfather built fall into ruin.
  • The drought brought economic ruin to local farmers.
  • South Korea has built one of the richest economies in the world from the ruins of the war.
    — Choe Sang-Hun, New York Times, 27 July 2023
  • Allow at least four to five hours to walk around the ruins.
    — Elizabeth Heath, Travel + Leisure, 4 Mar. 2023
  • The building they had been gathered in was smashed to ruins.
    — Sufian Taha, Washington Post, 26 Nov. 2023
  • The evil of his ideas and the ruin launched by his deeds paved the way for the horrors that defined so much of the 20th century.
    — David Harsanyi, National Review, 25 Jan. 2024
  • The north side of the beach is quieter and closer to the ruins, while the south side has more hotels and restaurants.
    — Jamie Ditaranto, Travel + Leisure, 15 Apr. 2023
  • The first to reach the upper ruins, Humm appears pulled to their centre.
    — Julian Manning, Condé Nast Traveler, 18 Sep. 2023
  • Meanwhile, the European Union and the Gulf states were always ready to foot the bill to reconstruct the ruins in the strip.
    — Jean-Pierre Filiu, Foreign Affairs, 1 Jan. 2024
  • The ruins were found in the Lubuskie Province, which is in southwestern Poland, about 275 miles west of Warsaw.
    — Moira Ritter, Miami Herald, 23 Feb. 2024
  • Other city workers soon joined and, from that point on, Kharkiv didn’t let ruins linger.
    — Masha Gessen, The New Yorker, 8 Mar. 2023
  • The film’s director, Mike Nichols, felt that Burton was in love with ruin.
    — Andrew O’Hagan, The New Yorker, 27 Nov. 2023
  • After three days of living like this, everyone knows the way around the ruins.
    — Ivana Kottasová, CNN, 12 Sep. 2023
  • For many years, pieces of the statues were scattered around the site amongst other ancient ruins.
    — Julia Binswanger, Smithsonian Magazine, 1 Mar. 2024
  • The Russians were lying prostrate, as if willing themselves to meld in with the ruins around them.
    — Bob Seely, Foreign Affairs, 24 Nov. 2023
  • These ruins used to be our lives, our carpets, food and everything.
    — Anna Coren, CNN, 14 Oct. 2023
  • Among the Roman ruins were 100 coins, fragments of pottery and roofing tiles.
    — Caolán Magee, CNN, 14 June 2023
  • Like the borscht belt ruin, its decay had become its allure.
    — Sonja Sharp, Los Angeles Times, 30 Mar. 2023
  • It's gotta be fun to be poking around these dark ruins and exploring Mandalore with him.
    — Devan Coggan, EW.com, 9 Mar. 2023
  • Gaza City and surrounding towns have been pounded to ruins.
    — Wafaa Shurafa, arkansasonline.com, 14 Dec. 2023
  • Hikers will also pass by ancient ruins and cave dwellings, home to the Rarámuri.
    — Meagan Drillinger, Travel + Leisure, 11 Feb. 2024
  • The next day, after Picasso saw photos of corpses amid the ruins of Guernica in the French dailies, his mind was made up.
    — Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 15 Mar. 2024
  • On a recent moonlit night, a four-man Ukrainian squad attempted to float a drone amid the ruins of a kindergarten in a village south of the city.
    — Nick Parker, Washington Post, 9 July 2023
  • Studio Fouad has been back in business since New Year’s 2022, in a line of shops freshly reclaimed from the ruins left by the port explosion.
    — Scott Peterson, The Christian Science Monitor, 2 Oct. 2023
  • The estate’s current owners saved the property, one of the largest medieval castles in the Provence region, from ruin back in 2003.
    — Emma Reynolds, Robb Report, 3 May 2023
  • Aerial images from the scene showed smoking ruins, with the structure reduced to rubble and some large pieces lodged in trees above.
    — Pilar Arias, Fox News, 13 Mar. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ruin.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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