How to Use defund in a Sentence

defund

verb
  • Her crime: Juarez failed to back a goal to defund the police by 50%.
    — Timothy Egan New York Times, Star Tribune, 28 June 2021
  • One side of me wants to say, yeah, defund the police, take it away.
    — ExpressNews.com, 22 June 2020
  • Still, some worry the push to defund the police is rash.
    — Simone Weichselbaum and Nicole Lewis, USA TODAY, 9 June 2020
  • Lawmakers agreed to defund the IWC as part of the deal.
    — Taryn Luna, Los Angeles Times, 28 Sep. 2023
  • The bills were written in response to efforts to defund the police in cities across the U.S.
    — Dallas News, 21 June 2021
  • There’s still a very strong movement to defund the police, even in the middle of a five-alarm fire.
    — Frederick Kaufman, Harper's Magazine, 26 Feb. 2024
  • Many of the letter writers urged the council to defund the police.
    — Sharon Coolidge, Cincinnati.com, 19 June 2020
  • Calls to defund the police rang out in protests across the country and through the halls of city government.
    — Jennifer Swann, The New Republic, 27 Oct. 2020
  • Many demonstrators have called for the city to defund the police.
    — CBS News, 13 June 2020
  • A year after mass protests calling to defund the police, we’re set to elect a cop to lead the city.
    — Willy Blackmore, Curbed, 28 Oct. 2021
  • Biden even countered calls to defund the police in an ode to them.
    — Ryan King, Washington Examiner, 15 May 2023
  • City and counties that try to defund the police would lose their state funding.
    — Gray Rohrer, orlandosentinel.com, 22 Sep. 2020
  • That’s because people don’t vote for Democrats to defund things.
    — Dominic Pino, National Review, 28 Mar. 2022
  • The shootings come amid a movement by some to reform or defund the police.
    — Sharon Coolidge, The Enquirer, 17 Aug. 2020
  • Thirteen percent of whites and 28% of blacks wanted to defund them.
    — Karlyn Bowman, Forbes, 7 Apr. 2021
  • Zemault’s death prompted protests and calls to defund the police.
    — Jacob Beltran, San Antonio Express-News, 5 Feb. 2021
  • Trump has also opened the door for states to defund Planned Parenthood.
    — Liz Brody, Glamour, 10 Feb. 2018
  • Collins charged that Allred voted to defund the police by $600 million.
    — Dallas News, 19 Oct. 2020
  • In the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police, calls to defund and dismantle law enforcement swept the country.
    — Ella Lee, USA TODAY, 26 Aug. 2020
  • The 30-second spot attacks Biden for wanting to defund the police.
    — TheWeek, 21 Aug. 2020
  • Rubio has tried to tie Demings to the far-left’s defund the police movement.
    — Skyler Swisher, Orlando Sentinel, 27 Oct. 2022
  • Policing scholars tend to see the movement to defund the police in this context.
    — Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2020
  • The groups are asking the council to defund the Phoenix Police Department.
    — Chelsea Curtis, azcentral, 3 June 2020
  • Demonstraters are calling on Durkan to defund the police.
    — Fox News, 26 June 2020
  • In Idaho, some conservatives now want the state to defund it.
    — Samantha Chery, Washington Post, 28 Oct. 2022
  • In the wake of Floyd's death, advocates have called to defund the Police Department in Phoenix and elsewhere.
    — Uriel J. Garcia, The Arizona Republic, 10 July 2020
  • As a call to action, defund the police can have a variety of meanings.
    — Alexandra Ossola, Quartz, 9 June 2020
  • Trump has pledged to defund gender-affirming care—and to ban it for minors.
    — Madison Pauly and Sarah Szilagy, Them, 5 Nov. 2024
  • Threats to defund cinemas and film festivals based on their programmatic content runs directly counter to the right to free speech for art, artists, and exhibitors as a whole.
    — Harrison Richlin, IndieWire, 14 Mar. 2025
  • This comes after Kiley previously introduced a bill to defund the project, and asked the Department of Transportation to initiate a probe.
    — Colleen Shalby, Los Angeles Times, 6 Mar. 2025

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