How to Use tic-tac-toe in a Sentence

tic-tac-toe

noun
  • This acrylic and wood tic-tac-toe board brings style and function to any room.
    — Jaclyn Kaufman May Earn A Commission If You Buy Through Our Referral Links. This Content Was Created By A Team That Works Independently From The Fox Newsroom., FOXNews.com, 21 Oct. 2025
  • This design features a mix of sparkly red tops, a heart-centric tic-tac-toe board, and a love letter.
    — Kara Jillian Brown, InStyle, 31 Jan. 2026
  • In these types of games, one player tries to block another from moving; one example is tic-tac-toe.
    — Jackie Flynn Mogensen, Scientific American, 10 Feb. 2026
  • The arm can play a mediocre game of tic-tac-toe with you, using cups placed inside a 3x3 square of shelving.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 3 May 2018
  • In another room, the robot played a simplified version of tic-tac-toe with a patient.
    — Hallie Golden, Fortune, 19 Sep. 2025
  • In another room, the robot played a simplified version of tic-tac-toe with a patient.
    — Hallie Golden The Associated Press, Arkansas Online, 26 Oct. 2025
  • The video below shows how the system works, with a Kinova arm taking turns placing cups on the tic-tac-toe grid with a human subject.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 3 May 2018
  • Off an Avs’ chance, the Blues reversed the ice in a 3-on-2 rush that led to a tic-tac-toe pass and Thomas’ second goal of the night.
    — Kyle Newman, Denver Post, 6 Apr. 2026
  • That allowed Kempe, Panarin and Byfield to connect on a tic-tac-toe play to secure a gigantic second point.
    — Andrew Knoll, Daily News, 5 Apr. 2026
  • As the Earliwoods unreeled their account of the helicopter-in-the-night, Chief Perkins made tic-tac-toe designs on a yellow pad.
    — Annie Proulx, New Yorker, 10 Aug. 2025
  • Lowry scored on a tic-tac-toe passing play from Perfetti and Lowry 13 minutes in that Garand had little chance of preventing.
    — CBS News, 22 Mar. 2026
  • And again, the Wild answered, with Faber capping a pretty tic-tac-toe passing play with Kaprizov and Danila Yurov.
    — Jess Myers, Twin Cities, 4 Jan. 2026
  • But 39 seconds into the second period, with some leftover power-play time, the Eagles did take the lead on a tic-tac-toe play by a trio of Bruins’ draft picks.
    — Steve Conroy, Boston Herald, 21 Mar. 2026
  • Chychrun opened the scoring with a rebound off a shot from Alex Ovechkin in front, and 20 seconds later, Strome finished off a tic-tac-toe passing play to extend the lead.
    — ABC News, 4 Apr. 2026
  • Fresh off that honor, Landeskog took a tic-tac-toe pass from Necas and MacKinnon, with the latter finding Landeskog wide open on the weak side of the net for an easy-money 1-0 lead.
    — Kyle Newman, Denver Post, 10 Apr. 2026
  • One of the games Yowell and the Tennessee students played with the New Orleans children was nine square, a large three-dimensional tic-tac-toe board the students used to save money to play at the church, the pastor said.
    — Jay Powell, Nashville Tennessean, 20 Oct. 2025

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