How to Use once in a Sentence

once

1 of 3 adverb

• It was once done that way.
• He didn't look at me once.
• She didn't once thank me.
• The play was performed only once.
• I will repeat the question once.
• A river once flowed through this canyon.
• It was once a booming mining town.
• Their music was once very popular.
• These should be cleaned once a month.
  — Cody Godwin, USA Today, 19 Oct. 2025
• Dad was even pounced once by the cougar.
  — Alex Gurley, PEOPLE, 6 May 2026
• Kress once felt like the odd man out.
  — Edgar Thompson, The Orlando Sentinel, 13 Feb. 2026
• Game 5 showed two things at once.
  — Mike Bianchi, The Orlando Sentinel, 30 Apr. 2026
• My wife used to check on her once a day.
  — Donna Vickroy, Chicago Tribune, 13 Feb. 2026
• Your sheets should be swapped or washed once a week.
  — Cody Godwin, USA Today, 19 Oct. 2025
• He was sacked four times but didn’t turn the ball over once.
  — Ryan Gaydos, FOXNews.com, 19 Oct. 2025
• God gave me back my life as a gift — not once, but twice.
  — Amelie Botbol, FOXNews.com, 22 Apr. 2026
• And once a doll, always a doll.
  — Edward Segarra, USA Today, 21 Mar. 2026
• Mopping should be done once a week.
  — Daley Quinn, Southern Living, 7 Sep. 2025
• Tucker swung through it once again.
  — Sahadev Sharma, New York Times, 12 Oct. 2025
• Most had already been checked more than once.
  — Rania Abouzeid, New Yorker, 21 May 2026
• No one can solve all of these problems at once.
  — Daren Smith, IndieWire, 27 May 2026
• Each team plays three other teams in their group once.
  — Jibin Joseph, PC Magazine, 28 June 2026
• Make two quiches at once with this no-fail recipe.
  — Kimberly Holland, Southern Living, 1 Nov. 2025
• Hanceville, once again, has no mayor.
  — Rob Picheta, CNN Money, 7 Feb. 2026
• This is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of place.
  — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 30 Jan. 2026
• Hunt, a singer, has been divorced once.
  — Anna Kaufman, USA Today, 6 Feb. 2026
• Just a district told, once again, to wait.
  — Daryl Campbell, Sun Sentinel, 6 May 2026
• That, for once, luck will fall in their favor.
  — Zack Rosenblatt, New York Times, 8 Sep. 2025
• There are, once again, new rules along with new players.
  — Chris Morris, Fortune, 7 Sep. 2025
• Cargo belt bags are all of them and none of them at once.
  — María Munsuri, Glamour, 21 Sep. 2025

once

2 of 3 noun

• Please be on time just this once.
• For once you seem to know what I'm talking about.
• I have tried Indian food more than once.
• The plates are large enough to grill up to four burger patties at a once, cutting the usual cook time in half.
  — Sanah Faroke, PEOPLE.com, 13 July 2021
• Voyager is a once in a lifetime, and perhaps many lifetimes, mission.
  — Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 7 Mar. 2022
• In a once in a lifetime event, the night sky on Wednesday will be both the brightest and darkest ever seen.
  — Ivan Pereira, ABC News, 23 May 2021
• The binge-it-all-at-once model, for example, is no longer inviolable.
  — Andy Meek, BGR, 19 June 2022
• The renewal comes just under a month after Life & Beth’s all-at-once release.
  — Rick Porter, The Hollywood Reporter, 13 Apr. 2022
• The upside of it is that you may be rewarded with a once in a lifetime buck that has probably never seen a human being.
  — Hal Blood, Outdoor Life, 10 Nov. 2020
• Temporary hair loss, caused by events like chemotherapy, stress, or post-pregnancy, may clear up on its own once circumstances change.
  — Beth Shapouri, Allure, 31 Aug. 2021
• This is a once in a generation opportunity to build school buildings that meet the needs of this century.
  — BostonGlobe.com, 2 Apr. 2021
• Experts recommend giving your fridge the once over every week, especially the crispers and the meat storage areas.
  — Terry Baddoo, USA TODAY, 10 May 2022
• Survivor was a once in a lifetime opportunity, being an attorney could wait!
  — Dalton Ross, EW.com, 18 Feb. 2021
• As a matter of public relations, all-at-once reveals invite unnecessary risks.
  — Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 29 Oct. 2021
• The last thing that Biden wants, however, is yet more confrontations with his once and potentially future rival.
  — Stephen Collinson, CNN, 26 Oct. 2021
• The all-at-once release model that Netflix pioneered gave users the freedom to consume TV at their own pace.
  — John Jurgensen, WSJ, 29 Apr. 2022
• This is a once in a lifetime shift away from legacy television measurement and opens the door to solve decades old problems that have plagued the advertising ecosystem.
  — Brad Adgate, Forbes, 21 Sep. 2021
• But with bigger crowds and first-time visitors modeling other travelers’ behaviors, even small just-this-once choices can add up.
  — Stephanie Vermillion, Outside Online, 11 Mar. 2022
• Even harder is getting into the under-the-radar private shows the Stones play a once or twice each tour, which are usually arranged by a billionaire and held in a tiny venue.
  — Andy Greene, Rolling Stone, 9 Aug. 2022
• The pandemic has presented us with a once in a lifetime opportunity to reimagine the future of retail, and retailers should grab it with both hands.
  — Alliance Manchester Business School, Forbes, 24 Feb. 2021
• Wembanyama is a once in a lifetime prospect, who could feasibly turn a team's fortunes around by becoming one of the most productive two-way centers in all of basketball.
  — Morten Jensen, Forbes, 31 July 2022
• Daybell, who has also been indicted on a charge of first-degree murder and insurance fraud in the death of his once-wife Tammy Daybell, is due in court next week.
  — NBC News, 26 May 2021
• Disney Plus, for example, has moved more of its episodic unscripted programming to an all-at-once release strategy based on viewing data.
  — Todd Spangler, Variety, 14 Sep. 2021
• For Andrea Berstler, operating a library during a pandemic has proven to a unique and a once in a lifetime experience.
  — Yasmine Askari, baltimoresun.com/maryland/carroll, 8 Mar. 2021
• Scrambling to find a district that fits, though sometimes unseemly, is commonplace for politicians of both major parties after the usual once-a-decade redistricting process.
  — Michael Smolens, San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 Dec. 2025
• By 1982, the penny’s once-copper character had given way to cheaper zinc as metal prices climbed and its popularity with the public began to wane.
  — Marc Ramirez, USA Today, 12 Nov. 2025
• In many newsrooms, including at the once staunchly anti-union Los Angeles Times, journalists have organized in order to gain a degree of control over their lives.
  — Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein, The New Republic, 4 Jan. 2021
• During a once in a lifetime pandemic when people were desperate for information, CNN and every other network took the briefings live.
  — Fox News, 4 Feb. 2022
• Originally used to provide horse stables for the once grander homes on surrounding streets, the Mews is currently a mishmash of 10 or so, now-pricey, two-story Victorian row homes.
  — Howard Walker, Robb Report, 4 May 2021
• By Saturday, the remnants of the once-Category 5 hurricane will be a tropical storm heading toward northern Europe.
  — Matt Nighswander, NBC news, 30 Oct. 2025

once

3 of 3 adjective

• Weeds now wind through the paving stones at the once grand entrance.
  — Ruth Eglash, Washington Post, 29 June 2020
• No amount of banging it against the counter will return it to its once supple, wet sand-like texture.
  — Alana Al-Hatlani, Southern Living, 16 Jan. 2025
• Tents were pitched by people using the once grand station lobby as a shelter.
  — BostonGlobe.com, 3 Sep. 2021
• But Smith also had some choice words for the once and future president.
  — Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News, 14 Jan. 2025
• The once summer home became a residential dwelling once more.
  — Nandika Chatterjee, Time, 5 Nov. 2025
• You might be left with tiny scratches that make your once pristine appliances and surfaces look less than stellar.
  — Patricia Shannon, Better Homes & Gardens, 28 Apr. 2025
• All around him, a heavy blanket of smoke camouflaged the once pristine lake with a gray and brown haze that made the water difficult to see even from just a few feet away.
  — NBC News, 12 Sep. 2021
• His eyes were practically swollen shut, and his once-red comb was black — a possible sign, McKillop said, of loss of blood flow.
  — Washington Post, 9 Feb. 2017
• As many as a third of Venezuelans in the once oil-rich nation were eating just one meal a day, according to a 2019 study.
  — Ingrid Cotto, orlandosentinel.com, 8 Apr. 2021
• Tech will be at the heart of the once office-centric workplace and good communication will be key as companies make this transition.
  — USA Today, 20 Apr. 2021
• As job gains dropped off from their once breakneck pace, economists were quick to note that the labor market was merely slowing and not at risk of imminent collapse.
  — Alicia Wallace, CNN, 4 Oct. 2024
• Anne Boelyn, the once queen of England, was informally accused of witchcraft.
  — Brooklyn White, Essence, 13 Aug. 2021
• Over the last few decades, its once majority of white workers were replaced with immigrants who together speak more than 80 languages.
  — Los Angeles Times, 18 Dec. 2020
• Brazil meanwhile were beaten by hosts France in the last 16; a disappointing but not unexpected finish from a once world class squad.
  — SI.com, 4 Oct. 2019
• Over the past two decades plus there's been an incredible amount of amazing horror programming that has totally changed the landscape of how viewers enjoy the once niche genre.
  — Rosie Knight, refinery29.com, 24 Sep. 2020
• And Michigan's gone through spring drills without a clear answer of who will realistically be the front-runner once summer begins.
  — Nick Baumgardner, Detroit Free Press, 12 Apr. 2018
• For now the once globe-trotting Ghosn is stuck in Lebanon, unable to travel overseas without risking arrest and a return to Japan.
  — Reuters, CNN, 2 Mar. 2022
• In recent years, a once-fringe theory — dubbed the Big Bounce — has gained traction in cosmological circles.
  — Gabe Allen, Discover Magazine, 17 Feb. 2023
• The once mogul’s Combs’ pricey defense have sought a sentence of just 14 months, with time served — which would have had Diddy out on the streets by Christmas.
  — Dominic Patten, Deadline, 3 Oct. 2025
• The once-rockstar software developer, instead of coding, spends the day managing the minutiae of the daily workflow.
  — Jack Kelly, Forbes, 8 Mar. 2023
• Part of the once icy expanse of the Suicide Glacier has been replaced by an earthen divot that gets filled up like a bathtub each summer, setting the sequence in motion.
  — Eric Zerkel, CNN, 7 Aug. 2024
• Exploration and production company shares are on fire, and debt and equity markets are reopening for the once downtrodden sector.
  — Dan Eberhart, Forbes, 28 Apr. 2021
• Natasha and Yelena resolve to topple Dreykov and the Red Room, a mission that requires them to reconnect with their once parents.
  — Jake Coyle, Star Tribune, 29 June 2021
• The once symbol of American manufacturing has struggled in recent years and has sold off parts of its business to try and stabilize its operations.
  — Jj Kinahan, Forbes, 9 Nov. 2021
• Cryptocurrency advocates hope the development thrusts the once niche and nerdy corner of the internet even further into the financial mainstream.
  — TIME, 11 Jan. 2024
• Kanye also attacked Jay-Z and his wife, Beyoncé, along with their children, over feeling abandoned by his once collaborator.
  — Justin Curto, Vulture, 19 Mar. 2025
• Growth is accelerating as the network effect has built on WhatsApp’s exodus, catapulting the once niche player into the majors.
  — Zak Doffman, Forbes, 4 May 2021
• As the once leader of the industry, its woes rippled backward through the supply chain and forward into the airline industry which desperately needed new aircraft to meet the rising demand for post-pandemic travel.
  — Jerrold Lundquist, Forbes, 28 Dec. 2024
• The once jet-setting, Oscar-winning movie producer has remained in custody at Rikers Island jail, and has frequently been hospitalized due to health issues.
  — Matt Lavietes, NBC news, 13 Aug. 2025
• Now, with the once-bedroom communities of Herriman and Copperton, for example, growing, even booming, the transportation plans are becoming outdated.
  — Alixel Cabrera, The Salt Lake Tribune, 20 Apr. 2022