How to Use dragnet in a Sentence

dragnet

noun
  • Nine suspects were caught in the police dragnet.
  • Some have complained they were falsely caught up in a dragnet.
    — The Arizona Republic, 16 Jan. 2024
  • Wide swaths of the population will get caught up in the dragnets.
    — Steven Greenhut, Orange County Register, 6 Dec. 2024
  • To save her from the Nazi dragnet, her parents gave her up at the age of 4 months.
    — Bart Barnes, BostonGlobe.com, 13 July 2019
  • El Cirujano escaped the police dragnet and has yet to be caught.
    — Danny Gold, SI.com, 23 July 2019
  • For months, Wardle feared that anyone who emailed her would be pulled into the dragnet.
    — Naomi Nix, Washington Post, 24 July 2024
  • The story explains why the dragnet took place, and the feds’ argument for keeping the assets.
    — Justin Ray Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 10 June 2021
  • Meanwhile, the costs of Florida’s dragnet are starting to emerge.
    — Mary Ellen Klas, Mercury News, 15 Apr. 2026
  • In recent weeks, the demonstrators have used the lasers to keep pace with a widening dragnet by authorities.
    — Jennifer Hassan, Washington Post, 1 Aug. 2019
  • Manzo eluded the dragnet, and the freeway was later reopened, police said.
    — Matthew Ormseth, Los Angeles Times, 9 Mar. 2021
  • But the recent outbreaks have led to frustration and grumbling as more and more people have been caught up in the virus-control dragnet.
    — New York Times, 21 Jan. 2022
  • For drivers caught in the state’s carceral dragnet, fines and fees imposed by the government are just one side of an extractive coin.
    — Jack McCordick, The New Republic, 13 Sep. 2023
  • Hayat Tahrir al Sham has run dragnets to pick up those unwilling to surrender.
    — Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times, 23 Jan. 2025
  • On the right, there are varying degrees of empathy for those simply caught up in the immigration dragnets.
    — Bob Ehrlich, Baltimore Sun, 10 Mar. 2026
  • Most people caught in this dragnet will not be like Rudy Carcamo-Carranza.
    — Alvaro M. Bedoya, The Atlantic, 21 June 2017
  • Civil liberties groups are equally alarmed by the biometric dragnet.
    — Newsweek Editors, MSNBC Newsweek, 2 Dec. 2025
  • This Times exclusive explains why the dragnet took place, and the feds’ argument for keeping the assets.
    — Laura Blasey, Los Angeles Times, 12 June 2021
  • Bao Fan, a star investment banker, went missing in February and is believed to have been caught up in the dragnet.
    — Laura He, CNN, 13 Sep. 2023
  • After the shooting, police locked down an elementary school across the street and set up a perimeter, but the shooter eluded the dragnet.
    — Matthew Ormseth, Los Angeles Times, 22 Dec. 2021
  • As has happened with past EDD account freezes, some legitimate claimants got swept up in the dragnet.
    — Carolyn Said, San Francisco Chronicle, 27 Jan. 2022
  • That might have been the precise moment that the man believed to be Cunanan took his life and ended a dragnet that galvanized the nation.
    — By Frances Robles, John Lantigua and Martin Merzer, miamiherald, 2 July 2017
  • Cawthorn slipped away from a police dragnet on Memorial Day, using his dirt bike to flee as officers approached.
    — Jessica Anderson, baltimoresun.com, 6 June 2019
  • At the same time, the law enforcement dragnet continues to round up suspects after the events of last week as new and alarming information emerges.
    — Dan Balz, Anchorage Daily News, 13 Jan. 2021
  • Ironically, Guojun had been caught in his own surveillance dragnet.
    — Ava Kofman, New Yorker, 9 Feb. 2026
  • Human rights advocates, meanwhile, warn that the crime crackdown has resulted in tens of thousands of innocents being caught in a dragnet.
    — Jeronimo Gonzalez, semafor.com, 22 Aug. 2025
  • Exploiting this loophole flies in the face of lawmakers’ previous actions to ban dragnet surveillance.
    — Alexandra Reeve Givens, Time, 17 Mar. 2026
  • Reports of raids on homes and workplaces have come from major cities and rural towns alike, revealing a dragnet that has touched large swaths of Iranian society.
    — CBS News, 14 Feb. 2026
  • That one is courtesy of an ex-girlfriend who helped John escape a dragnet in Belize after he’d been accused of shooting his neighbor in the back of the head.
    — Andy Meek, BGR, 24 Aug. 2022
  • Tons of undocumented immigrants, easily swept up in the dragnet.
    — Dp Opinion, Denver Post, 16 Feb. 2026
  • A week before the latest killing spree in Hanau, German police rounded up 12 far-right extremists in a dragnet that swept across six states.
    — Can Dündar, Time, 25 Feb. 2020

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