How to Use at a loss in a Sentence

at a loss

phrase
  • Trump seems at a loss to bring the war to a successful conclusion.
    — Rob Crilly, The Washington Examiner, 7 Aug. 2026
  • But in this premiere, the cast is largely at a loss on who to target at the first roundtable.
    — Hunter Ingram, Variety, 18 Sep. 2026
  • The claim that followed was that every token went out the door at a loss, so scale could only deepen the hole.
    — Jon Markman, Forbes.com, 17 Aug. 2026
  • Schools operating at a loss for multiple years could be at risk of closure.
    — Mollie Simon, ProPublica, 16 July 2026
  • The agency has operated at a loss over the past decade, the commission said.
    — Mike Snider, USA Today, 11 July 2026
  • Fox was at a loss for words while speaking to the NBC Sports broadcast after the win.
    — Jacob Lev, CNN Money, 19 July 2026
  • At the time, Amazon was undercutting book publishers by buying their e-books and then selling them at a loss.
    — Reed Albergotti, semafor.com, 4 Sep. 2026
  • The Sekai team was at a loss, and Therain recalls calling his wife crying in the lobby of a hotel in Tokyo.
    — Jennifer Maas, Variety, 20 Aug. 2026
  • There’s an old story about a shoemaker who’s selling shoes at a loss under the misguided belief that the volume of sales will make up for the drop in revenue.
    — Bar Maimon, Forbes.com, 9 Sep. 2026
  • So what would Mark Twain—a man never at a loss for opinions—make of America on the 250th anniversary of its birth?
    — Ron Chernow, The Atlantic, 2 July 2026
  • That guaranteed the teams with revenue, with brokers benefiting from a markup for popular games but taking the risk that tickets to less popular games would sell at a loss, or not at all.
    — Bill Shaikin, Los Angeles Times, 19 Sep. 2026
  • An investor who sold XFLT any time after the IPO would have done so at a loss, and that loss has kept growing.
    — Michael Foster, Forbes.com, 28 July 2026
  • Investors often wait until December to tax-loss harvest — or sell investments at a loss and use their losses to offset gains in other investments.
    — Cheryl Winokur Munk, CNBC, 23 Sep. 2026
  • After a weekend sweep of the Washington Nationals, a step up in competition has left the Marlins at a loss.
    — Barry Jackson, Miami Herald, 25 Aug. 2026
  • However, stocks that performed below their purchase price can be sold at a loss to offset capital gains and reduce your overall tax liability—a process called tax-loss harvesting.
    — Paula Thielen, Forbes.com, 10 Sep. 2026
  • This involves selling securities at a loss to offset capital gains or lower taxable income, resulting in a reduced tax liability.
    — Cheryl Winokur Munk, CNBC, 21 July 2026
  • The first version stumbled spectacularly—employees persuaded it to stock novelty tungsten cubes and sell them at a loss—but later iterations became considerably more competent.
    — Victor Dey, Forbes.com, 20 July 2026
  • Eutelsat, Europe's challenger to Elon Musk's Starlink, posted better-than-expected revenue figures on Friday but is still operating at a loss.
    — Sean Conlon,hugh Leask,justina Lee,sarah Min, CNBC, 6 Aug. 2026
  • State subsidies and mandates from Beijing have also encouraged excess production and cutthroat price wars, forcing them to turn to export markets and resulting in nearly a third of Chinese industrial firms operating at a loss.
    — Jason Ma, Fortune, 6 Sep. 2026
  • The same analysis found that 73% of Indiana nonprofits would have been at risk of operating at a loss between 2021 and 2023 without government grant funding.
    — Nia Bowers, IndyStar, 9 July 2026
  • High cash value life insurance is increasingly part of that strategy, providing tax-advantaged, accessible capital that can help fund operations, seize opportunities or weather disruptions without selling core assets at a loss.
    — Expert Panel®, Forbes.com, 1 Sep. 2026
  • Jeff Lenard, a spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores, said Freedom Fuel’s rock bottom promotional price meant the chain was likely selling the gas at a loss.
    — Brian Slodysko, Fortune, 20 July 2026
  • Nearly 30 percent of Chinese industrial firms operate at a loss, up from 20 percent before the COVID-19 pandemic.
    — Michael B. G. Froman, Foreign Affairs, 13 Aug. 2026
  • It, and three other airline stocks, were sold by Warren Buffett at a loss in the first quarter of 2020 amid a massive reduction in air travel as the COVID-19 pandemic was gaining steam.
    — Alex Crippen, CNBC, 15 Aug. 2026

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

Last Updated: