How to Use gambit in a Sentence

gambit

noun
  • Kyiv saw through this gambit, and the peace talks flopped.
    — Bob Seely, Foreign Affairs, 24 Nov. 2023
  • The other side of the coin also has a stake in this gambit.
    — Lance Eliot, Forbes, 20 Feb. 2023
  • Each of the songs in In the Heights takes off along its own visual gambit.
    — Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 5 May 2021
  • That gambit was talked about a lot leading up to the draft.
    — Charlotte Carroll, New York Times, 27 Apr. 2025
  • The gambit worked, and the song hit Number 15 on Adult Pop Airplay.
    — Joseph Hudak, Rolling Stone, 23 Jan. 2024
  • The lawyers tried that gambit again on Thursday with Chutkan.
    — Alan Feuer, BostonGlobe.com, 17 Aug. 2023
  • The gambit for the tour is that the sibling trio will play five of their albums each night.
    — Chris Willman, Chicago Tribune, 3 May 2023
  • But even some Democrats think that this gambit is played out.
    — Amy Davidson Sorkin, The New Yorker, 7 Jan. 2020
  • Nathaniel Hackett’s gambit took the Broncos to a new low.
    — Derrik Klassen, New York Times, 20 Nov. 2022
  • The programming gambit should, at the very least, draw younger crowds to NFL play.
    — Brian Steinberg, Variety, 22 Nov. 2024
  • The move turned out to be one of the worst gambits of Mr Erdogan’s career.
    — The Economist, 24 June 2019
  • The van On the night of Sept. 9, Cavalcante pulled off one of his boldest gambits.
    — Daniel Arkin, NBC News, 13 Sep. 2023
  • And yet, that doesn’t mean that Putin’s gambit will succeed.
    — Michael A. Cohen, The New Republic, 24 Feb. 2022
  • The gambit failed, Ellison left for Lowe's, and Soltau was hired to clean things up.
    — David Goldman, CNN, 30 Dec. 2020
  • The gambit has reportedly paid off for the band to the tune of $2 million.
    — Los Angeles Times, 17 May 2021
  • But this gambit would have even less prospect of success.
    — Ramesh Ponnuru, Star Tribune, 25 May 2021
  • Putin’s gambit sought to reveal cracks in the alliance.
    — Abraham Mahshie, Washington Examiner, 17 Apr. 2021
  • The gambit fails to please them, thanks to the long shadow of Japanese colonial rule.
    — Bonnie Johnson, Los Angeles Times, 4 Aug. 2023
  • Was the salad-tossing always the gambit for the second sketch?
    — Matthew Jacobs, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 June 2023
  • The next week or so will go a long way to determining if the gambit pays off.
    — Los Angeles Times, 3 Feb. 2022
  • So that’s their gambit, and it’s sustainable and all that.
    — Quartz Staff, Quartz, 6 Dec. 2021
  • In any case, Iger has judged Chapek’s gambit a failure.
    — Shawn Tully, Fortune, 24 Feb. 2023
  • The apex of the language gambit seems to be those amazing polyglots that know a dozen or dozens of languages.
    — Lance Eliot, Forbes, 19 Apr. 2023
  • After a couple of months with it, does the gambit feel fresh, stale, or a little of both?
    — Billboard Staff, Billboard, 25 Jan. 2022
  • But as the embers of war glow in the region, this gambit becomes less and less tenable.
    — Arash Azizi, The Atlantic, 12 Jan. 2024
  • Their gambit did not work; the moms were tear-gassed like everybody else.
    — Blair McClendon, The New Republic, 24 May 2021
  • For many of them, Putin’s gambit has unwound 30 years of progress made since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
    — Robyn Dixon and Catherine Belton, Anchorage Daily News, 20 Feb. 2023
  • The gambit angered Bolivians and gave Morales a last-minute boost.
    — CBS News, 3 Dec. 2023
  • The cease-fire, announced as lasting 30 hours, appeared to be a gambit by Putin to show the U.S. that Russia was serious about peace.
    — Justin Porter, New York Times, 21 Apr. 2025
  • The tightrope metaphor can feel goofy and schematic, but there’s also the excitement of tracking the unfurling of a grand statement, and the frisson of wondering whether McCann’s gambit (like Petit’s) will succeed.
    — Katy Waldman, New Yorker, 19 May 2025

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