How to Use mah-jongg in a Sentence

mah-jongg

noun
  • Like most fads, mah-jongg slowly began to fade.
    — Ashley Parker, The Atlantic, 15 June 2026
  • Children might watch and learn as grandparents play games such as mah-jongg or cards with friends.
    — Marina Lopes, The Atlantic, 6 Oct. 2025
  • Patrons lounged in a smoky daze; men wearing fedoras played mah-jongg.
    — Dennis Zhou, New Yorker, 12 Dec. 2025
  • In its original incarnation and indeed as it’s still played by some, mah-jongg was a gambling game.
    — Kase Wickman, Vanity Fair, 10 Mar. 2026
  • The lack of awareness leads to animosity toward American mah-jongg in some circles.
    — Kase Wickman, Vanity Fair, 10 Mar. 2026
  • The variety of spellings, including mahjong, mah jong and mah-jongg, reflects that diversity of histories.
    — Hanna Wickes, Charlotte Observer, 24 June 2026
  • In American-style mah-jongg especially, there’s no limit to the trappings available for purchase to deck out a game table.
    — Kase Wickman, Vanity Fair, 10 Mar. 2026
  • Much like the mah-jongg scene in The Joy Luck Club more than two decades prior, the movie helped push mah-jongg back into popular culture.
    — Ashley Parker, The Atlantic, 15 June 2026
  • Blake Lively reportedly had her chauffeur bring her bespoke mah-jongg set to a long day of court during her suit against her former co-star Justin Baldoni.
    — Ashley Parker, The Atlantic, 15 June 2026
  • The game was so successful that by 1924, Congress passed a law that included a specific duty category for mah-jongg sets.
    — Ashley Parker, The Atlantic, 15 June 2026
  • Until recently, mah-jongg was mainly played by older Chinese Americans (both men and women) and Jewish women.
    — Ashley Parker, The Atlantic, 15 June 2026
  • Stuffy dead white guy Foster can rest easy at the great bridge table in the sky knowing that here and now, in 2026, the mah-jongg economy is alive and beyond well in America.
    — Kase Wickman, Vanity Fair, 10 Mar. 2026
  • Although all versions of mah-jongg use, broadly, the same set of tiles, and involve four players around a table forming sets and sequences to try to complete winning hands, variants of the games diverge significantly from there.
    — Ashley Parker, The Atlantic, 15 June 2026
  • The question of appreciation versus appropriation in mah-jongg is one that Florian Koenigsberger thinks about every day.
    — Kase Wickman, Vanity Fair, 10 Mar. 2026
  • Once reserved for seasoned players and visits to see relatives, mahjong (also known as mah-jongg), is currently experiencing a major resurgence among younger generations eager for meaningful ways to connect offline.
    — Cori Sears, Better Homes & Gardens, 29 Jan. 2026
  • Pozzi and his colleagues conducted a 2023 meta-analysis of 15 studies that showed several cognitive benefits of traditional board games such as chess, Go and mah-jongg.
    — The Washington Post, San Diego Union-Tribune, 21 Oct. 2025
  • Ma, a Chinese and Taiwanese American, grew up playing Taiwanese mah-jongg, and along with his father—the elder Tim Ma—began hosting weekly lessons at his restaurant.
    — Ashley Parker, The Atlantic, 15 June 2026
  • The climax of 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians takes place over a mah-jongg table, and there’s no missing the implications of skill, intelligence, and power dynamics at play, a meeting of minds.
    — Kase Wickman, Vanity Fair, 10 Mar. 2026
  • And yet, mah-jongg in recent years continues to surge upward in the United States, transcending the territory of amusing pastime and moving firmly into a lifestyle, complete with cutesy accoutrements begging to be added to your cart.
    — Kase Wickman, Vanity Fair, 10 Mar. 2026
  • Following the coronavirus pandemic, Wong said, people were eager to leave their houses and connect with one another, and mah-jongg offered an affordable way to gather with existing friends or make new ones—at a time when this sort of connection was perhaps needed most.
    — Ashley Parker, The Atlantic, 15 June 2026
  • And, just maybe, that can go at least a few inches toward explaining the enduring popularity of mah-jongg—also variably spelled mah jong, mahjong, mah jongg, and more, with our spelling taken from Merriam-Webster—one that spans continents and centuries.
    — Kase Wickman, Vanity Fair, 10 Mar. 2026
  • Chess players reported an improved quality of life, according to the World Health Organization Quality of Life scale, while mah-jongg players had a reduction in symptoms of depression.
    — The Washington Post, San Diego Union-Tribune, 21 Oct. 2025
  • And so the Mahjong Project was born, her effort to document her Chinese New Zealand family’s mah-jongg rules, which existed primarily as oral traditions, and to gather other variations from across the Asian diaspora.
    — Ashley Parker, The Atlantic, 15 June 2026
  • Indeed, ticketing platform Eventbrite shared data with VF showing that in the US, nearly triple the number of mah-jongg events were posted on the site in January 2026 compared to January 2025.
    — Kase Wickman, Vanity Fair, 10 Mar. 2026

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