Synonyms
Examples of frisk in a Sentence
Joy Lanzendorfer, The New Yorker, 13 Oct. 2023
The sun gleams with late summer perfection on the beautiful crowd, mostly Black and Latine, and vastly diverse in age—including one elderly woman using a walker, who giggles as the security lady gestures at gently frisking her.
—Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, Pitchfork, 18 Sep. 2023
He was frisked and an officer found a handgun, the report said.
—Josephine Peterson, Dallas News, 8 Aug. 2023
Too many people are stopped, frisked, and searched unlawfully.
—Larry Neumeister, BostonGlobe.com, 6 June 2023
Two officers threw him against the vehicle, frisked and handcuffed him.
—Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY, 7 June 2023
An independent review of the death of Elijah McClain, the 23-year-old Black man who died in Colorado after being placed in a carotid hold by police and injected with ketamine, was made public on Monday and alleges the officers had no reasonable suspicion to stop and frisk him in the first place.
—Bill Hutchinson, ABC News, 22 Feb. 2021
Further, officers shall not frisk or search people or view or touch their genitals for gender identification or for any demeaning or harassing purpose.
—oregonlive, 19 Apr. 2023
Williams had stopped Reynolds and was planning to frisk him.
—Hartford Courant, 15 Dec. 2022
Aya Elamroussi, CNN, 23 Sep. 2023
And stop and frisk, which allowed New York police officers to temporarily detain people and check them for contraband, was practiced for many years, including under Mike Bloomberg's tenure as Mayor.
—Joe Weisenthal, Bloomberg.com, 20 Apr. 2023
And so the combination of the Rockefeller drug laws and stop and frisk led to people spending years in, in prison for minor cannabis possession.
—Joe Weisenthal, Bloomberg.com, 20 Apr. 2023
Stop and frisk becomes a plot point, as does the deconstruction of neighborhoods of color that have existed in New York City for generations.
—Odie Henderson, BostonGlobe.com, 29 Mar. 2023
The other pattern is officers will attempt to justify the frisk by placing the civilian in the back seat of a squad car.
—Elliot Hughes, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 13 May 2022
But McRae's lawyer would argue that police had no cause to detain his client, saying the arrest resulted from an unconstitutional stop and frisk.
—Darcie Moran, Detroit Free Press, 10 Mar. 2023
In 2021, there were almost 9,000 stops and frisks, according to NYPD data, and 87% were of Black or Latino people.
—Harry Bruinius, The Christian Science Monitor, 2 Mar. 2023
Hasina agreed to address the crowd, the Ritz pushed the tables and chairs to the sides of their Old Dominion room, and security formed a frisk and scan line to clear and funnel at least 200 people into the ballroom.
—Petula Dvorak, Washington Post, 3 Oct. 2022
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These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'frisk.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Verb
obsolete frisk lively
Verb
1519, in the meaning defined at intransitive sense
Noun
1525, in the meaning defined at sense 2c
Dictionary Entries Near frisk
Cite this Entry
“Frisk.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/frisk. Accessed 2 Dec. 2023.
Copy Citation
Kids Definition
frisk
verb
Legal Definition
frisk
transitive verbNote: The purpose of frisking a suspect is to insure the safety of an officer making an investigation against concealed weapons, not to uncover evidence. The officer must be justified in his or her encounter of the suspect and must have a reasonable suspicion that the suspect is armed. The scope of the frisk must be limited to the discovery of weapons.
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