How to Use tunnel in a Sentence

tunnel

1 of 2 noun
Definition of tunnelnext
Synonyms for tunnelnext
  • The moles dug tunnels in the yard.
  • The train goes through a tunnel in the mountain.
  • But at the end of the day, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
    — Nate Atkins, The Indianapolis Star, 13 Jan. 2023
  • The project should bring the tunnel, opened in 1934, up to modern code.
    — Daniel Kool, BostonGlobe.com, 25 July 2023
  • If the mice had not yet moved, the disk’s motion caused the rodents to scurry to the tunnel.
    — Kyle Melnick, Washington Post, 14 Dec. 2023
  • They were driven away and led on foot through a tunnel for hours.
    — Daniel Estrin, NPR, 5 Apr. 2024
  • Water dips in places from the roof of the tunnel, pooling below.
    — Ingrid Rojas Contreras, New York Times, 22 Mar. 2023
  • The dam and tunnel are scheduled to be removed later this year.
    — Don Sweeney, Sacramento Bee, 4 Mar. 2024
  • Firefighters found jackets and school bags left at the mouth of a tunnel.
    — Aliza Chasan, CBS News, 22 Mar. 2023
  • But then, of course, Abbé Faria spends most of his time digging a tunnel.
    — Elsa Keslassy, Variety, 28 Nov. 2023
  • The civilians tackle one subject on the exit ramp from the tunnel.
    — Mike Hendricks, Kansas City Star, 15 Feb. 2024
  • Customers put baby strollers in the truck's gear tunnel.
    — Morgan Korn, ABC News, 16 Apr. 2023
  • The tunnels were dark, damp and too narrow for two people to pass each other.
    — Ronen Bergman, New York Times, 26 Mar. 2024
  • Jamaica held on for the draw, and the players jumped around like victors; the French filed down the tunnel and never came back out.
    — Naaman Zhou, The New Yorker, 28 July 2023
  • Photographing Nick Chubb carrying the Jim Brown flag out of the smoke and lights of the tunnel to start the season gave me chills.
    — Joshua Gunter, cleveland, 11 Sep. 2023
  • There are no extra shift levers jutting out of the tunnel, no front hubs to lock, just a small switch inside the glove box.
    — David E. Davis Jr., Car and Driver, 18 Mar. 2023
  • Ray DeAutremont stood at the end of the tunnel, holding a suitcase packed with dynamite.
    — oregonlive, 23 Jan. 2023
  • In one corner of the chapel, a sloping tunnel leads down to the hidden burial chamber.
    — Aspen Pflughoeft, Miami Herald, 14 Feb. 2024
  • Thirty-nine people were killed when fire erupted in the Mont Blanc tunnel in France and burned for two days.
    — Chicago Tribune, 24 Mar. 2023
  • To Jacob, no matter what darkness presents itself, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.
    — Dallas News, 24 Jan. 2023
  • During the Cold War, most subway tunnels were simply bricked up at the border.
    — Rick Steves, Chicago Tribune, 8 Aug. 2023
  • Some signs of carpal tunnel, per the Mayo Clinic, are wrist pain and tingling, numbness, or weakness in the hands and fingers.
    — Mara Santilli, SELF, 11 Jan. 2023
  • The two ambled around then turned around, bumbling back toward the tunnel, but not before showing off the strength of their bond.
    — Sean Mowbray, Discover Magazine, 25 Oct. 2023
  • The trains collided as the passenger train was coming out of a tunnel.
    — George Petras, USA TODAY, 1 Mar. 2023
  • Those fish died of gas bubble disease, which happens when the pressure changes while passing through a tunnel at the base of a dam.
    — Kris Millgate, Field & Stream, 5 Apr. 2024
  • The shady side sits near an office building, with two reflecting pools, a tunnel and a large tree.
    — Samantha Latson, Washington Post, 1 Aug. 2023
  • Last Friday’s event symbolized a light at the end of a tunnel and a dream realized.
    — Dominique Fluker, Essence, 14 Dec. 2023
  • And as extreme weather events become more common, the public might change its mind and start to see a shining light at the end of the tunnel.
    — Nick Kasmik, USA TODAY, 27 July 2023
  • The Bears ran out of the tunnel with little to no juice and never put together any sort of momentum.
    — Michael Haag, Dallas News, 16 Sep. 2023
  • Here’s a legged robot from the winning team, shown exploring a tunnel.
    — Kurt Kleiner, Discover Magazine, 27 July 2023
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tunnel

2 of 2 verb
  • Workers are tunneling through the hill.
  • Insects had tunneled into the tree.
  • The ordeal began Sunday when the pair tunneled their way out of the lockup.
    — Carol Robinson | [email protected], al, 26 Nov. 2019
  • The groundhog simply tunneled under the fence and sheared off what was left of the radish stems, emerging bean sprouts, and parsnip greens.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 3 May 2023
  • Applying a small voltage to the STM tip makes electrons tunnel across the gap.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 23 Oct. 2023
  • When the eggs hatch, larvae enter the leaves and begin to tunnel between the leaf surfaces.
    — Tom MacCubbin, OrlandoSentinel.com, 29 June 2018
  • The drug lord escaped from prison in 2015 after a crew tunneled to retrieve him.
    — Jeremy Bagott, WSJ, 27 July 2017
  • Think of the world as at once tunneled and pierced by water yet held together by it.
    — Matthew Gavin Frank, Harper's Magazine, 21 Oct. 2022
  • The Core adopts unobtanium as the winking name of a substance used to build a drill to tunnel to the center of the Earth.
    — Chris Klimek, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 Dec. 2022
  • The builders want to tunnel through a mountain some 700 feet below the level of the trail, which runs along the ridgetop and intertwines with the Blue Ridge Parkway.
    — Robert Barnes, BostonGlobe.com, 23 Feb. 2020
  • In many ways, Magic fans must feel a lot like Dufresne — the prisoner who took 17 years to tunnel his way to freedom.
    — Mike Bianchi, orlandosentinel.com, 23 Oct. 2021
  • Vines not needing such grafting are rare but still exist on sandy soils, through which the louse cannot tunnel.
    — Tom Mullen, Forbes, 24 July 2022
  • To pull off the stunt, the new pals used this map tunneling tool, which tells you which part of the other side of Earth is directly below you.
    — Andrew Daniels, Popular Mechanics, 23 Jan. 2020
  • The gaps between the buildings were filled in and their cellars were blown up so people could not tunnel beneath them.
    — Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 29 Jan. 2018
  • The map shows 15 challenging spots where cables cross over the roadway and would need to be tunneled under the pavement.
    — Rick Kambic, chicagotribune.com, 8 Sep. 2017
  • As the larvae continue to tunnel and feed, more pitch will bleed from the tree, like what is occurring with your tree.
    — Tim Johnson, chicagotribune.com, 22 Aug. 2020
  • The streams tunneling along the ice were tinted a mint blue, a color that results from the sun hitting the water's limestone silt.
    — Debbi Snook, cleveland.com, 18 Mar. 2018
  • The only way out for Dickens may be to tunnel further in — to write a Christmas book in time for Christmas, which is but weeks away.
    — Beth Kephart, chicagotribune.com, 14 Dec. 2017
  • But a few issues have kept tunneling floating around in the background.
    — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, 5 July 2017
  • Then we were asked to look deeply into a spinning Optical Swirl that seemed to tunnel in and out of its spirals.
    — Tom Teicholz, Forbes, 5 June 2022
  • Police said a Reading man tunneled through a wall and stole a cell phone, cell phone charger and about $5 in change from a laundromat.
    — Sarah Brookbank, Cincinnati.com, 8 Jan. 2018
  • And his slider is a weapon, a late-breaking offering that is said to tunnel well with his fastball.
    — Nick Piecoro, The Arizona Republic, 16 Nov. 2022
  • More than 80 rescuers -- each working 12-hour shifts -- are on the pile at a time, listening for sounds and trying to tunnel through the wreckage.
    — Morgan Winsor, ABC News, 29 June 2021
  • To tunnel under walkways, attach a pointed sluice nozzle to a length of PVC pipe.
    — Merle Henkenius, Popular Mechanics, 25 June 2021
  • Surviving birds, making their way back to the roof, got caught and tunnelled again; think Sisyphus but with bullets.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 24 Oct. 2023
  • Later, when the cicada eggs hatch, nymphs will emerge and tunnel underground to start the broods’ cycles anew.
    — Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 Jan. 2024
  • The swooping, bending branches that tunnel the streets are mostly oak, draped in swaths of Spanish moss.
    — Jessica Defino, Vogue, 27 Dec. 2020
  • Scooping or tunneling a bagel is the practice of using a spoon to dig out a circle of the bready interior between the hole and the crust of both halves of the bagel.
    — Sam Burros, Peoplemag, 30 Oct. 2023
  • Subway is an obstacle that guests can tunnel through or climb over.
    — Charles Infosino, Cincinnati.com, 12 June 2020
  • After 13 years or 17 years, depending on their brood, the cicadas will tunnel to the surface to reach maturity and engage in a monthlong, noisy search for a mate.
    — Denise Chow, NBC News, 20 Jan. 2024

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