How to Use goad in a Sentence

goad

1 of 2 verb

• The threat of legal action should goad them into complying.
• Clever taunts goad their target, daring a response.
  — Albert Samaha, Washington Post, 3 June 2026
• Some intense ambitions may goad you to burn the candle at both ends.
  — Tribune Content Agency, oregonlive, 14 Sep. 2021
• Roman’s nihilism is on full display when Kendall strides in to goad him back to work.
  — Erica Gonzales, ELLE, 30 May 2023
• Gibbs gets there first and pulls a gun, and Samuels tries to goad Gibbs into shooting him.
  — Sara Netzley, EW.com, 28 Sep. 2021
• Nor could the stage goad Diplo to dip further into his own credits.
  — Jon M. Gilbertson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 23 June 2018
• But the Stars should be trying to goad the Wild into foolish penalties.
  — Mark Lazerus, New York Times, 27 Apr. 2026
• Toward the end of the tour, Sharon and I tried to goad him into coming over to our side of the stage.
  — Andy Greene, Rolling Stone, 10 Aug. 2023
• But the indictment goaded him to stand up for the former president.
  — Maya King, New York Times, 31 Mar. 2023
• When the referee went down, Sikoa slid a chair in and tried to goad Keys into using it.
  — Ryan Gaydos, FOXNews.com, 16 May 2026
• On my third run up and down the track, an instructor goaded me into hitting 25 miles per hour.
  — oregonlive, 27 Sep. 2019
• Then Chris goads Hannah into speaking about a few guys who have made this straining process worth it.
  — Ariana Romero, refinery29.com, 18 June 2019
• Temperature is one of the sharpest sticks to goad a buck into moving (or staying on his belly).
  — Scott Bestul, Field & Stream, 4 May 2023
• In the course of the conversation, his old friend goaded him into trying his hand at womenswear.
  — Ana Karina Zatarain, New Yorker, 19 Sep. 2025
• Sometimes a service that’s supposed to save you money ends up goading you into spending way more.
  — Jacob Kastrenakes, The Verge, 22 Aug. 2018
• Teens bait rivals in Instagram posts or are goaded by allies in private chats.
  — Alec MacGillis, ProPublica, 8 Aug. 2023
• This is why Democrats constantly try to one-up each other in goading the president.
  — Jonah Goldberg, National Review, 14 June 2019
• The people have to simply be goaded and herded into obeying the mai-baap sarkar’s* wishes.
  — K.n.c., The Economist, 16 Aug. 2019
• For a while, Maddie tries to goad Percy into finding his inner wild boy.
  — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 21 June 2023
• Pacquiao's camp sure seems to be pushing for a rematch, or at the very least goad Mayweather into one.
  — Matt Bonesteel, courant.com, 24 July 2019
• In the video, Greene and her companions continue to goad the staff while chuckling from outside the door.
  — Em Steck and Andrew Kaczynski, CNN, 14 May 2021
• The only live question in this case is whether the Supreme Court can be goaded into wanting it as well.
  — Matt Ford, The New Republic, 14 Aug. 2019
• Five centuries later, the European peasantry has once again been goaded to fury.
  — Tilak Doshi, Forbes, 26 Feb. 2024
• The protagonist then goads him into drinking enough to agree to spending the afternoon at her lake house.
  — Megan McCluskey, Time, 5 Mar. 2026
• In the ensuing chaos, one of those two young men takes the stage, goaded on by his friend, and soon has the audience dancing to his melodies and words.
  — Murtada Elfadl, Variety, 22 May 2026
• Gaskill is being charged with wire fraud for giving Barriss the wrong address and then goading him into swatting it.
  — Timothy B. Lee, Ars Technica, 24 May 2018
• After every game, reporters would hound him and goad him; under the pressure, Maris lost clumps of hair, or so the legend goes.
  — Louisa Thomas, The New Yorker, 5 Oct. 2022
• His Dahl is constantly goading people, driving them right up to the edge of their tolerance.
  — Sara Holdren, Vulture, 24 Mar. 2026
• Unsure if anyone inside heard the knock, the boys goaded Joshua into ringing the doorbell.
  — Jonathan Edwards, Washington Post, 19 July 2023
• When the two wind up at a random Easter brunch, Winfried goads Ines into karaoke.
  — Fran Hoepfner, Vulture, 20 Mar. 2026

goad

2 of 2 noun

• The threat of legal action is a powerful goad to companies that have ignored the regulations.
• Who talks you out of your worst ideas and goads you toward your best ones?
  — Vulture, 4 Feb. 2024
• The largest group carried goads for their teams of working steers.
  — Denise Coffey, courant.com, 17 June 2019
• The catchphrase is also a goad.
  — Kathryn Vanarendonk, Vulture, 3 Dec. 2025
• Fear of being sold to the Deep South was a frequent goad to flight.
  — Roger Lowenstein, WSJ, 26 Oct. 2022
• Their plot thickens when Davis goads Staten into taking a swing at him.
  — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 17 Apr. 2025
• Setting unattainable goals doesn’t work well, but offering a reachable one can be a useful goad.
  — Dan Ariely, WSJ, 17 Aug. 2017
• The capacity to get mad, to rise to provocation, and to strike out against insult is not just a good thing but a goad to growth.
  — Lily Meyer, The Atlantic, 3 June 2025
• As a goad to European diplomacy, talk of arming Ukraine turned out not to be a bad idea.
  — Foreign Affairs, 24 Feb. 2015
• The two start to get into it about how much Harlan knows about this stuff, how this is his world and Cane goads him about his father.
  — Maggie Fremont, Vulture, 19 June 2025
• The author offers an impressive survey and a goad to further reading.
  — Benjamin Shull, WSJ, 27 Oct. 2022
• Defenders lather on pressure at the perimeter and goad guards into mistakes.
  — Julia Poe, Chicago Tribune, 27 June 2025
• Dominus strongly implies that Carney was caving to a goad on Gelman’s blog.
  — Daniel Engber, Slate Magazine, 19 Oct. 2017
• Their fairly gentle demeanor means handlers can manage them with verbal commands and the judicious use of goad sticks.
  — Denise Coffey, courant.com, 17 June 2019
• Politics now in Illinois is about herding the people, using their emotions as the shepherd’s goad.
  — John Kass, chicagotribune.com, 20 Feb. 2021
• Dawn goads Joe about Ted, suggesting that Joe’s late father, who was also sheriff, would have taken action.
  — Richard Brody, New Yorker, 5 Sep. 2025
• Over the decades, the diary would serve as both a goad to and a document of the kind of endless, restless self-searching that was the template of many people’s lives in her generation.
  — Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker, 18 Mar. 2024
• Meanwhile, Kyle and Lisa goad Allison the medium (who is getting drunker by the minute) to give them a psychic reading.
  — Literary Hub, 24 Feb. 2026
• Thus began Johns’s career-long fascination with signs and symbols — not as a subject for representation, but as a goad to pure painting.
  — Washington Post, 29 Sep. 2021
• When the volatile Moon in your impulsive 5th house goads impatient Mars in your money zone, you may be tempted to break away from someone who seems to be stringing you along.
  — Tarot Astrologers, Chicago Tribune, 26 Aug. 2023
• Over the past two years, Ortega Diaz has become a goad to Maduro and his supporters, as the president increased his crackdown on dissent.
  — Andrew Rosati, Bloomberg.com, 30 June 2017
• Morton is applying those lessons to winning local district councils, which have the ability to declare local climate emergencies that serve as a goad to the federal government.
  — Scott Wilson, Washington Post, 18 Jan. 2020
• The book also served, throughout, as a worthwhile goad, spurring me to test its assertions against my own uneasy re-experience — as both avid user and resistant consumer of social photography.
  — Leah Ollman, Los Angeles Times, 10 Aug. 2019
• As Phillips, Seth K Hale is impresario, goad and narrator — and for good measure, often contributes harmony vocals.
  — Jim Higgins, jsonline.com, 26 Apr. 2025
• Musk’s warnings of civilizational destruction and call for regulation goad regulators into flying the yellow flag.
  — Robert Zafft, Forbes, 19 Apr. 2023
• Reynolds goads Miller by sending a photo of himself getting cozy with Sophia, and in a moment both lurid and laughable, the prisoner visualizes the two of them getting naked and going at it right outside the cell.
  — David Rooney, HollywoodReporter, 3 Sep. 2019
• However, your spending on hobbies or entertainment could get away from you as the exuberant Sun in your playful 5th house goads impulsive Uranus in your finance sector.
  — Tarot Astrologers, Chicago Tribune, 15 Aug. 2023
• Within the finite period of six years beginning in 1943, these books became both commercial phenomena and effective goads to the national soul.
  — Samuel G. Freedman, The Atlantic, 10 July 2023
• As the 30-year-old United man made his way into the stadium, a section of Liverpool fans approached him and proceeded the goad and hurl a number of verbal obscenities his way.
  — SI.com, 28 May 2018
• Stories like those emanating from San Francisco General can be powerful goads to federal lawmakers.
  — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 2 Aug. 2019