How to Use smuggle in a Sentence

smuggle

verb
  • The paintings had been smuggled out of the country before the war.
  • We smuggled his favorite sandwich past the nurse.
  • He was arrested for smuggling drugs into the country.
  • They smuggled immigrants across the border.
  • They were smashed up and came to me and asked me to smuggle out some tapes.
    David Marchese David Marchese, New York Times, 21 Oct. 2022
  • Nansen managed to smuggle out of the camp page by page.
    courant.com, 6 Nov. 2020
  • To smuggle the dope gift past the guards, the man stuffed the weed—wrapped in a rubber balloon—up his nose.
    Beth Mole, Ars Technica, 31 Oct. 2019
  • The students had smuggled beer on board and didn’t sleep much.
    Palko Karasz, New York Times, 23 Dec. 2019
  • In 2021, beer geeks in Texas might not have to smuggle Yuengling Lager across state lines.
    Sarah Blaskovich, Dallas News, 17 Sep. 2020
  • The three-man smuggling crew shot the guard with a rubber bullet and fled.
    Joe Pappalardo, Popular Mechanics, 6 Sep. 2018
  • When the lawyers tried to seize the studio’s assets, Chaplin smuggled the film to a safe place.
    Katherine Yamada, Glendale News-Press, 5 Sep. 2019
  • Gotta love Rachel trying to smuggle rice out of the challenge, though.
    Nick Caruso, TVLine, 25 Sep. 2024
  • The mortars are believed to have been smuggled from Libya through Egypt.
    Fares Akram, The Seattle Times, 25 Mar. 2019
  • Why, from your point of view, is smuggling itself not the problem?
    Lisa Deaderick, San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 May 2024
  • Unable to smuggle shipments of Candy out of the city, Ju-yeong’s deal with the yakuza falls through.
    Kayti Burt, Time, 21 July 2025
  • Marcos said he’s been smuggling migrants for six years and won’t stop — at least in the short term.
    Gabe Gutierrez, NBC News, 20 Feb. 2025
  • Xie had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to smuggle goods from the U.S. in May.
    al, 7 Sep. 2021
  • In this mix, smuggled refugees are far from being choice-less or the weak party.
    Milena Belloni, Quartz Africa, 27 July 2019
  • First, the parts were smuggled into the country and the drones were assembled.
    Harry Law, Time, 5 June 2025
  • So in the worst sieges in Syria, people could smuggle themselves in and out.
    Isaac Chotiner, New Yorker, 5 Aug. 2025
  • Some mines are run by warlords who work with rogue members of the Congolese army to smuggle the coltan out.
    The Economist, 23 Jan. 2021
  • More frequently, they are smuggled live for the pet trade.
    Scott Travers, Forbes, 28 Sep. 2024
  • The two suspects, if found guilty, face up to five years in jail and $7,000 in fines for attempting to smuggle wildlife.
    Washington Post, 17 Dec. 2019
  • The prisoners who snapped them took great risks to steal and smuggle cameras, and to hide the rolls of film after they were shot.
    Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 5 Aug. 2022
  • The red-ear slider turtle and blue towel it was smuggled in.
    Kerry Breen, CBS News, 12 Mar. 2025
  • Some Hong Kongers are now taking great risks to flee the city, even choosing to try to smuggle themselves out by sea.
    Ivan Watson, Rebecca Wright and Vanesse Chan, CNN, 14 Sep. 2020
  • The cameras made the evils of usury, stealing and smuggling visible.
    Richard Vokes, Quartz Africa, 30 June 2019
  • Last Wednesday, a court in Bali sentenced two Thais to 16-year jail terms for smuggling 2.2 pounds of methamphetamine.
    San Diego Union-Tribune, 21 Oct. 2019
  • The three swords that were attempted to be smuggled into the US arrived from Russia and the axe head from Ukraine, the agency said.
    Christina Maxouris, CNN, 12 Mar. 2023
  • The plan was to smuggle the drugs out of the United States to a foreign country, prosecutors allege.
    Nate Gartrell, Mercury News, 9 Aug. 2025

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