How to Use cordon off in a Sentence

cordon off

verb
  • Residents said they were stunned to see armed police cordon off their street and raid a house as news of the shooting emerged.
    — Freddie Clayton, NBC news, 15 Dec. 2025
  • In quant portfolios, strategies that cordon off credit risk are back in fashion.
    — Dave Smith, Fortune, 17 Oct. 2025
  • Traffic officers cordon off the sidewalk with yellow tape.
    — Los Angeles Times, 5 Apr. 2026
  • Kendall pulls the car past a line of cones that cordons off an Nvidia GTC conference venue, then hits start.
    — Nikita Ostrovsky, Time, 3 Apr. 2026
  • People brought tree branches in a circle to cordon off the area while others put flowers and candles at the memorial by a snow bank.
    — Jack Brook, Twin Cities, 25 Jan. 2026
  • News of Short’s death spread quickly, and before authorities could cordon off the crime scene, reporters swarmed the area.
    — Alex Gurley, PEOPLE, 15 Jan. 2026
  • But many failed to aggressively cordon off the area as thousands of people gathered, calling for Yoon’s ouster.
    — Hyung-Jin Kim, Los Angeles Times, 28 Jan. 2026
  • An image from the scene showed what appeared to be a furniture elevator propped up against a balcony, with police gathered nearby to cordon off the area.
    — Mirna Alsharif, NBC news, 19 Oct. 2025
  • Police cordon off the street surrounding the Citic Tower in Beijing following the crash.
    — Reuters, NBC news, 2 July 2026
  • The danger of the fire and the need for investigators to comb through it, prompted police to cordon off McCandlish Road.
    — John Wisely, Freep.com, 3 Oct. 2025
  • With the Pawtucket police station next door to the arena, officers responded to the scene immediately to cordon off the area and assist those who were present.
    — Providence Journal, The Providence Journal, 17 Feb. 2026
  • The British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, told the BBC that his government would not help cordon off Iran.
    — Robin Wright, New Yorker, 13 Apr. 2026
  • In the classroom above, more volunteers—teachers from schools across Taiwan—crowd around a desktop map of a disaster scenario, discussing where to block traffic, cordon off the public, and station emergency services to best handle whatever crisis is unfolding.
    — Charlie Campbell, Time, 23 Oct. 2025
  • Yoon sent troops and police officers to encircle the National Assembly, but many apparently didn’t aggressively cordon off the area, allowing enough lawmakers to get into an assembly hall to vote down Yoon’s decree.
    — Hyung-Jin Kim, Los Angeles Times, 16 Jan. 2026
  • Adam Segal, the director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN that Russia’s quest to cordon off its citizens from outside apps goes back nearly a decade.
    — Ivana Kottasová, CNN Money, 11 Feb. 2026

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