How to Use protract in a Sentence

protract

verb

• Their young players are not good enough to protract the dynasty.
  — Dieter Kurtenbach, The Mercury News, 17 Apr. 2024
• That could take some time, that could really protract things.
  — Taylor Wilson, USA TODAY, 18 Feb. 2022
• That shows just how protracted and litigious these matters can be.
  — Alexander Smith, NBC News, 12 Aug. 2024
• This will be bloody, long and protracted, something the coalition does not want.
  — Hollie McKay, Fox News, 6 Aug. 2018
• But this diplomatic can of worms could protract the conflict in Lebanon.
  — CNN, 13 Apr. 2024
• The strike would be the first in 15 years and history suggests it could be protracted.
  — Anousha Sakoui, Los Angeles Times, 28 Apr. 2023
• The dialogue becomes rather protracted as the person pours out their heart.
  — Lance Eliot, Forbes.com, 29 Aug. 2025
• The reversal was the first step in what will likely be a long, protracted set of legal proceedings.
  — Zachary Schermele, USA Today, 15 Oct. 2025
• If such a downturn is prolonged and protracted, months after the fact it is labeled a recession.
  — Jeff Sommer, New York Times, 7 Apr. 2023
• Emma Bovary to debt, seedy affairs and protracted death by arsenic.
  — Parul Sehgal, New York Times, 27 Mar. 2017
• And any move to revoke a station license would result in lengthy, protracted legal challenges.
  — Brian Stelter, CNN Money, 19 Sep. 2025
• The mean girl, the underdog, the sassy gay man, and the others, who have little function beyond protracting the process.
  — Chicago Reader, 2 Aug. 2017
• The finale is protracted to the point of exhaustion, as the music hits a climactic wall and then runs into it again and again.
  — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 21 Apr. 2017
• Hochstein said an all-out war with Hezbollah risks a much broader and protracted regional conflict, the sources said.
  — Barak Ravid, Axios, 16 Sep. 2024
• However, as suggested here, some impacts may be no less harmful or protracted.
  — New Atlas, 6 Aug. 2025
• But as the war becomes protracted, the country also faces major structural demands.
  — Nataliya Gumenyuk, Foreign Affairs, 19 Apr. 2024
• Already, the war has stretched for more than 14 months, making a yearslong protracted conflict more likely.
  — Paul Sonne, BostonGlobe.com, 6 May 2023
• The result of these won't be known for at least three weeks, protracting the negotiations, which have already taken months.
  — Jeremy Wallace, Houston Chronicle, 21 Feb. 2018
• Slowly lower your arms back to the starting position, allowing the scapula to protract and get a full stretch at the bottom.
  — Diego Mercado, Men's Health, 17 Jan. 2023
• Henley is not someone to wear the heart of the matter out on his sleeve in a rowdy atmosphere, so the moment was neither teary nor protracted.
  — Chris Willman, Variety, 21 Sep. 2024
• In other cases, after long, protracted efforts to force their way from one club to another, the manner of leaving a club is fraught.
  — Greg O'Keeffe, New York Times, 1 Feb. 2026
• The mediation process to resolve the lawsuit, filed in a Texas court, has become protracted.
  — Meg James, Los Angeles Times, 18 June 2025
• Disagreements among advisers, while at times robust and protracted, have barely surfaced in the press.
  — Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2023
• If the Hackman smile stayed fixed for more than a couple of seconds and his eyes lit up with joy, protracted cruelty might be incoming.
  — Matt Zoller Seitz, Vulture, 27 Feb. 2025
• It could be protracted with many of our troops – MAGA sons and daughters – coming home in body bags.
  — John Seiler, Oc Register, 25 Feb. 2026
• The pending standoff could get ugly, then protracted, maybe consuming an entire season.
  — Kevin Sherrington, Dallas Morning News, 29 Jan. 2026
• The process of curing diseases can be protracted, and not all research endeavors yield successful outcomes.
  — Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Sun Sentinel, 18 June 2025
• The wars in both Gaza and Ukraine have shown that modern conflict is munitions-intensive and protracted.
  — Thomas G. Mahnken, Foreign Affairs, 5 June 2024
• The writing process had grown so protracted that the Duffers had to start feeding draft pages to their department heads so sets and costumes could be ready in time to shoot.
  — Kate Aurthur, Variety, 15 Oct. 2025
• Epidemics can be short-lived or protracted, or, like the Justinianic plague, recurrent.
  — Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, 30 Mar. 2020