How to Use bleary-eyed in a Sentence

bleary-eyed

adjective
  • Most of the fans were bleary-eyed, but memories had been made.
    — Eduardo Tansley, New York Times, 22 May 2026
  • The director is a bit bleary-eyed and yawning, but that won’t last.
    — Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter, 29 Nov. 2023
  • That means most of us spend about about a third of our lives sleep-walking like bleary-eyed zombies.
    — Jennifer Jolly, USA TODAY, 1 Mar. 2023
  • But no one was thrilled with the new appointment time, least of all a bleary-eyed Williams.
    — Sean Gregory, Time, 16 Apr. 2025
  • Farther down the block, a shirtless man answered the door, bleary-eyed and idly rubbing his chest.
    — Rachel Monroe, The New Yorker, 4 Oct. 2024
  • Some people roll out of bed bleary-eyed and head straight into the shower to freshen up (and wake up) for the day ahead.
    — Bianca London, Glamour, 3 Oct. 2023
  • My bleary-eyed husband warming bottle after bottle in the kitchen.
    — Literary Hub, 20 July 2026
  • Some boat owners, bleary-eyed from a sleepless night, showed up to find their dock lines had broken and their boats were damaged.
    — Chris Kenning, USA TODAY, 10 Oct. 2024
  • El Guero’s menudo is a delicacy — a miracle to the bleary-eyed crowd.
    — Cesar Hernandez, San Francisco Chronicle, 3 Apr. 2023
  • Expect bleary-eyed reflections on his long career and hopefully some all-star cameos.
    — Madeleine Janz, PEOPLE, 30 Apr. 2026
  • The experience left both men bleary-eyed and exhausted before the end.
    — Richard Selcer, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 30 Mar. 2024
  • Into this confusion steps the TV critic, bleary-eyed and surly from too many hours on the couch.
    — Graham Hillard, The Washington Examiner, 27 Feb. 2026
  • Our party of three, by contrast, included two bleary-eyed parents and a starving 8-year-old.
    — Jacqui Gifford, Travel + Leisure, 16 Nov. 2023
  • Lucas Sommer woke up around the time the stock market opened and, still bleary-eyed, opened his Robinhood app.
    — Gunjan Banerji, WSJ, 12 Sep. 2023
  • It’s been a wonderful, bleary-eyed week full of love and kindness and extraordinary poo.
    — Anna Myers, Peoplemag, 24 Nov. 2023
  • Pablo, a hefty dude in a tight white tee, bleary-eyed behind his thick shades, dumps multiple tablespoons of sugar onto his rice.
    — Alphonse Pierre, Pitchfork, 21 Aug. 2023
  • The Arabic harmonies, sung pristinely, are a clever pairing for a genre already so steeped in bleary-eyed mystique.
    — Kiana Mickles, Pitchfork, 19 Mar. 2026
  • When the credits rolled, David and I held onto each other, bleary-eyed, blindsided.
    — Rachel Sherman, New York Times, 12 Feb. 2025
  • At the base camp where bleary-eyed firefighters recuperate, some expressed hope this weekend that more relief was on the way.
    — Isabel Debre, Los Angeles Times, 2 Feb. 2026
  • As dawn broke, a posse of bleary-eyed public servants, credentials on lanyards dangling over their sweatshirts, came out to meet the people.
    — Madeleine Wattenbarger, Eliana Gilet, & Axel Hernández, The Dial, 17 Dec. 2024
  • The buttons are minimal and easy to understand, which is a boon for bleary-eyed new parents (and middle-of-the-night pump sessions).
    — Simone Scully, Parents, 16 Apr. 2024
  • The emergency officials boarded the plane and carried the woman down the aisle past bleary-eyed passengers.
    — Mark Ellwood, Condé Nast Traveler, 23 Feb. 2024
  • Colleagues described a popular chaplain with nicknames for the tiny patients and soothing words for their bleary-eyed parents.
    — Hannah Allam, ProPublica, 10 Sep. 2025
  • In a clip on TikTok, a bleary-eyed Greening looked into the camera from her hospital bed.
    — Thomas G. Moukawsher, Newsweek, 23 Mar. 2025
  • Rutgers had just cut the Trojans lead to eight, leaving bleary-eyed fans worried that another late collapse was incoming.
    — Ryan Kartje, Los Angeles Times, 26 Oct. 2024
  • Past winners include champs of all shapes and sizes Last year, Trumpet the bleary-eyed bloodhound ran away with best in show, the first bloodhound to earn the title.
    — Scottie Andrew, CNN, 8 May 2023
  • In the clip, a bleary-eyed Robertson shows her toddler sitting up in bed eating a popsicle and watching TV in the dark.
    — Nina Turner, Newsweek, 31 Oct. 2024
  • On a recent morning, Alexis Mabille showed up bright and early on the Champs-Elysées looking a bit bleary-eyed.
    — Tina Isaac-Goizé, Vogue, 4 Dec. 2023
  • The crypto casinos weren’t like Las Vegas, where high-stakes poker players gambled in rooms separate from the bleary-eyed slots addicts.
    — Cecilia D'anastasio, Bloomberg, 27 Feb. 2026
  • Of course, as any bleary-eyed obsessive knows, the real guy is most likely dead at this point, but don’t call filmmaker Charlie Shackleton late to the game.
    — Vanessa Franko, Los Angeles Times, 23 Jan. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bleary-eyed.' 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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