How to Use sterile in a Sentence

sterile

adjective
  • The band wanted to be sure the new record was not sterile.
    — Eric Fuller, Forbes, 15 Apr. 2022
  • So the whole room looks very sterile, which is not my vibe.
    — Molly Longman, refinery29.com, 29 June 2020
  • At Canyon Creek, the sterile rooms were quiet and still.
    — Lizzie Presser, ProPublica, 29 Nov. 2022
  • Clean the area: Use a sterile saline wound wash spray twice per day.
    — Madeleine Burry, Health, 1 Feb. 2024
  • They are meant to feel less sterile and more like home.
    — Chloe Berger, Fortune, 12 May 2022
  • After Hours, the mega-star’s most sterile project to date.
    — Bobby Olivier, SPIN, 7 Jan. 2022
  • Kent was calling the games from a sterile studio, away from the games.
    — oregonlive, 21 June 2021
  • Of long drives and sterile sheets, trapped in tiny spaces with your thoughts.
    — Luca Evans, Denver Post, 18 May 2025
  • The swabs are then placed in sterile tubes filled with a solution that keeps the virus testable.
    — Julie Washington, cleveland, 19 Mar. 2020
  • The process begins with sterile source tissue, a small piece of a leaf, fruit, root, or shoot.
    — Nicole Kagan, BostonGlobe.com, 8 Aug. 2023
  • The mix should be sterile and hold roughly an equal amount of air and moisture.
    — Benjamin Whitacre, Better Homes & Gardens, 14 July 2022
  • Dip the end of the shoot in rooting hormone and place it in a pot with moist, sterile potting soil.
    — oregonlive, 28 Feb. 2021
  • The scene shifts to a sterile New York City office building.
    — Michael Slowik, The Conversation, 6 Feb. 2020
  • Some of the women in the neighborhood were sterile, too.
    — Longreads, 10 Aug. 2020
  • With two treatments, the capybaras should be sterile for at least a few months.
    — Michael Nied, People.com, 18 Apr. 2025
  • Sports In the future, NFL teams won't play in sterile concrete bowls.
    — Jason Parham, WIRED, 15 Aug. 2019
  • Urine is sterile; the sink gets washed out afterward; and my hands are clean.
    — Annie Lane, oregonlive, 14 Dec. 2021
  • The piercer will first clean and prep your skin, using a sterile, single-use pen to mark the spot of your piercing.
    — Madeleine Burry, Health, 1 Feb. 2024
  • That’s the day that her mom has to change the sterile dressing on the medication port in her chest.
    — Paul Sisson, sandiegouniontribune.com, 29 May 2018
  • But in the new study, sterile, germ-free mice were infected just fine.
    — Diana Gitig, Ars Technica, 14 Apr. 2018
  • And who would know the best about a sterile environment?
    — David Browne, Rolling Stone, 15 June 2022
  • Callery pears were developed to be sterile but are now known to bear fruit.
    — Jennifer Rude Klett, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 7 May 2020
  • At the end of this very long, sterile block is one other person, a young woman.
    — Lawrence Jackson, Harper's Magazine, 10 July 2023
  • At first, the second half continued in much the same sterile fashion as the first.
    — SI.com, 5 May 2018
  • In a sterile hood, Gao uses a hole puncher to remove a tiny chunk of a leaf or stem.
    — Emily Cataneo, Wired, 7 Nov. 2020
  • And even if the procedure does produce a calf, there’s a chance that the offspring could be sterile.
    — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 24 Aug. 2019
  • That was key to the slog through long days, tight deadlines and an Olympics that often felt sterile and joyless.
    — Los Angeles Times, 8 Aug. 2021
  • Kevitch thought dating apps on the whole were too sterile.
    — Jocelyn Silver, Vogue, 29 Dec. 2020
  • This means that any lander to set down, even briefly, on one of these moons would have to be completely sterile.
    — Joshua Rapp Learn, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 May 2025
  • The sterile fruit flies will be released in two quarantine areas: Alameda and Santa Clara counties.
    — Saleen Martin, USA Today, 8 May 2025

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