How to Use bribe in a Sentence

bribe

1 of 2 noun
  • I offered the children a bribe for finishing their homework.
  • The bribe amounts increased over the years as the Sinaloa cartel grew in size and power.
    Aaron Katersky, ABC News, 21 Feb. 2023
  • But most of the jury thought that the USC admission and the scholarship weren’t part of the bribe or the scheme.
    Matt Hamilton, Los Angeles Times, 4 Apr. 2023
  • Those were the bribes Samantha helped sign off on that her uncle Gene procured.
    Keith Nelson, Men's Health, 28 July 2023
  • But his mother has died, left behind for lack of bribe money for a visa.
    Mark Athitakis, Los Angeles Times, 31 Jan. 2024
  • Some of those bribes, prosecutors say, came in the form of envelopes stuffed with cash.
    Virginia Chamlee, Peoplemag, 5 Dec. 2023
  • That’s led them to threats and bribes to try and goad people in, only to yield predictable outcomes.
    Jane Thier, Fortune, 20 Nov. 2023
  • After refusing to pay the bribe, armed men put a hood over Hernandez's head and took him away in the back of a pickup truck.
    Margaret Brennan, CBS News, 4 Dec. 2023
  • As with any new process or routine, your dog will need time (and lots of tasty bribes) to adjust to and accept getting their nails trimmed by you.
    Stephen C. George, Discover Magazine, 4 Aug. 2023
  • This particular trope about Biden and Ukraine and the bribe that wasn’t is unlikely to die off swiftly.
    Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 22 Feb. 2024
  • Manuel Chang is accused of pocketing at least $5 million in bribes.
    James Fanelli, WSJ, 13 July 2023
  • The developments where the defendants allegedly sought bribes are in all five of the city’s boroughs.
    CNN, 6 Feb. 2024
  • While organized crime groups appear to have endless cash to pay for guns, bribes, and more, the government is on a tight budget.
    Regina Garcia Cano, BostonGlobe.com, 17 Aug. 2023
  • Bystanders weighed in with similar accounts, saying many of them have had to pay bribes to avoid arrest.
    Rick Noack, Washington Post, 5 Oct. 2023
  • Creators are also all too eager to sell out their followers with #ads that might in other venues be called bribes.
    WIRED, 13 Oct. 2023
  • The case builds on the conviction last year of one of the Twitter insiders who took bribes from Saudi intelligence.
    Joseph Menn, Washington Post, 16 May 2023
  • Justice Clarence Thomas asked whether an official could resign for an afternoon, just long enough to take a bribe.
    Adam Liptak, New York Times, 28 Nov. 2022
  • In 1980, a member was expelled for seeking a bribe in exchange for tanking a piece of legislation.
    Tim Craig, Washington Post, 7 Apr. 2023
  • In turn, the official said, owners needed to pay bribes to supervisors, with amounts based on an orchard’s size.
    Emiliano Rodríguez Mega César Rodríguez, New York Times, 28 Nov. 2023
  • Hood had worked for a subsidiary, Note Printing Australia, but rather than being found guilty of bribery, Hood was the one who notified authorities about the bribes.
    Ashley Belanger, Ars Technica, 5 Apr. 2023
  • The company since has said the payment was a bribe, although Randazzo denies wrongdoing and hasn’t been charged.
    Andrew J. Tobias, cleveland, 29 Jan. 2023
  • Shockingly, one in 10 Amazon customers has been offered bribes, from gift cards to free products, in exchange for a five-star review.
    Kurt Knutsson, Fox News, 16 Oct. 2023
  • The monopoly in turn provided a revenue stream for the bribes, prosecutors said.
    Faris Tanyos, CBS News, 26 Sep. 2023
  • Some of those bribes, prosecutors allege, came in the form of envelopes stuffed with cash, gold bars, and luxury vehicles.
    Virginia Chamlee, Peoplemag, 12 Oct. 2023
  • Recruiters have been accused of taking bribes and aiding draft-age men trying to leave the country to avoid military service.
    John Bacon, USA TODAY, 18 Aug. 2023
  • He has also been accused of accepting bribes in exchange for doing favors for the government of Qatar.
    Allison Pecorin, ABC News, 21 Mar. 2024
  • He was later accused of accepting bribes and sentenced to more than 13 years in prison, part of Xi’s sweeping crackdown on corruption.
    Alexander Smith, NBC News, 19 July 2023
  • The pipeline reopened only after the anonymous hackers received a $4.4 million bribe.
    The Week Staff, The Week, 26 Feb. 2023
  • The senator has also been accused of accepting bribes in exchange for doing favors for the government of Qatar.
    Aaron Katersky, ABC News, 14 Mar. 2024
  • The images of notorious bribe-takers walking out of prison and the mass resignation of the Milan anti-corruption pool in protest of the decree forced a crisis.
    Alexander Stille, The New Republic, 4 Apr. 2023
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bribe

2 of 2 verb
  • We bribed the children with candy.
  • They bribed him to keep quiet about the incident.
  • She was arrested for attempting to bribe a judge.
  • The Italian Carabinieri, who manned the borders, weren’t hard to bribe.
    Rebecca Frankel, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 Jan. 2023
  • An owner is alleged to have tried to bribe his head coach to lose games.
    Paul Daugherty, The Enquirer, 4 Feb. 2022
  • Some try to bribe or charm their way out of enforcement.
    Curbed, 30 Aug. 2023
  • The suit also alleged that Minaj went as far as to bribe Hough.
    NBC News, 14 Jan. 2022
  • There’s a guitar out there, 12-string guitar, that my dad bribed me with.
    Yvonne Villarreal, Los Angeles Times, 15 Feb. 2024
  • So that takes away the incentive to bribe people or to put pressure on them.
    WIRED, 18 Oct. 2023
  • But even so, a tabloid reporter bribed a nurse to say that Audrey had only three months to live.
    Town & Country, 28 June 2023
  • Matt Ampolsky’s response was to bribe me to erase facts.
    Samantha Hissong, Rolling Stone, 10 Nov. 2021
  • The owners bribed people with HIV to serve as pretend patients.
    Jessica Wapner, Scientific American, 15 Aug. 2023
  • Judy is caught by a prison guard, and goes on to bribe her with One Direction concert tickets.
    Rania Aniftos, Billboard, 4 Jan. 2023
  • In a second slide to the post, Gellar also shared a video of Jada where the star explained having to bribe her son to present at the Oscars.
    Alexia Fernández, PEOPLE.com, 13 Jan. 2022
  • On the next round, Larry learns that Lori was able to secure a coveted tee time by bribing the starter with $50.
    Ethan Shanfeld, Variety, 11 Mar. 2024
  • Chase, the troublemaker, tries and fails to bribe his little brother Grayson to keep a secret with $100.
    Emily Yahr, Washington Post, 18 Jan. 2023
  • Parents paid Singer to bribe college officials and to find ways to cheat on the tests, boosting their children's scores.
    Aimee Picchi, CBS News, 16 Dec. 2023
  • When all else fails, bribe with lollipops, cookies or candy.
    Alyssa Gautieri, Good Housekeeping, 14 Nov. 2022
  • As long as conniving CEOs don’t bribe their way into the parallel world to get hold of kaiju eggs . . .
    Tom Shippey, WSJ, 13 May 2022
  • Perfect for a pair of headphones—or a small amount of chocolate to bribe my daughter to behave in the security line.
    Juliet Izon, Condé Nast Traveler, 4 Apr. 2022
  • The cash was flown on a private jet to Cameroon, where it was used to bribe officials in the country’s national oil and gas companies.
    Anna Cooban, CNN, 3 Nov. 2022
  • Instead, the fishermen said, outsiders tried to bribe them, and others threatened them.
    Palabra, oregonlive, 21 Mar. 2022
  • About two months after that, Hammer was stopped for speeding in Oklahoma and tried to bribe the officer, the agent said.
    Dallas News, 6 Apr. 2022
  • Inside jobs might entail knowing whom to bribe or pay off and then how to launder the money and keep it safe from nosy inspectors.
    David Pryce-Jones, National Review, 3 Mar. 2022
  • Combs, who was arrested with two nine-millimeter guns in his car, was charged with four weapons charges and for bribing his driver to claim that the guns were his own.
    Andre Gee, Rolling Stone, 20 Nov. 2023
  • Prison guards are generally not well paid, and they are often bribed to assist in the smuggling or simply to look the other way.
    Charles Bethea, The New Yorker, 28 Aug. 2023
  • That's when one officer stepped in with a unique plan: bribing the dog with pumpkin muffins the officer's wife had baked for his patrol shift.
    Saman Shafiq, USA TODAY, 28 June 2023
  • All that’s to say, Hoshikawa is already planning on bribing her sister, a Parsons design student, to hem it for her.
    Eliza Huber, refinery29.com, 20 July 2023
  • Maybe this special group wields political power and can buy, bribe or lawyer their way out of any legal jam.
    Michael J. Lee, The Conversation, 20 Mar. 2023
  • Two of the previous three presidents had gone to prison due to the scandal, as did some executives at Fiat Chrysler who had bribed them.
    Chris Isidore, CNN, 12 Sep. 2023

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