How to Use gouge out in a Sentence
gouge out
verb-
Tile work and court paintings at historical sites were vandalized, the eyes of past royals gouged out.
—
Azadeh Moaveni,
New Yorker,
22 Mar. 2026
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To gouge out the parasitic pillager, the doctors performed a pars plana vitrectomy—a procedure that involves sucking out some of the jelly-like vitreous inside the eye.
—
Beth Mole,
ArsTechnica,
13 Aug. 2025
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The violence is psychological and rarely fatal, in marked contrast to that in Sophocles’s work (in other words, nobody gouges out their eyes after having mistakenly slept with their own mother).
—
Rachel Vorona Cote,
The Atlantic,
5 Jan. 2026
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Fueled by vengeance and cunning ambition, Ashur rises from betrayal and bloodshed to seize power, gouging out a place for the House of Ashur in a new arena full of violence, desire, and twisted loyalty.
—
Rosy Cordero,
Deadline,
30 Oct. 2025
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While in custody, Dale Grogan reportedly began exhibiting increasingly erratic and self-destructive behavior, attempting to gouge out his own eyes while being held in the county jail, prompting deputies to intervene and transport him under guard to a nearby hospital for emergency treatment.
—
Robert Alexander,
MSNBC Newsweek,
31 Oct. 2025
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'gouge out.' 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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