gadfly
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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A gadfly candidate for mayor of Chicago, Lar Daly, secured a quirky FCC ruling.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 8, 2026
That’s because in Austin, Harrison is viewed as a gadfly, with few legislative victories or allies.
From Salon ● Oct. 16, 2025
The publication was founded in 1955 by the legendary gadfly William F. Buckley Jr. as a salon for the various right-leaning fraternities in American life: fire-eating libertarians, orthodox Catholics, conspiratorial anti-communists.
From Slate ● Apr. 25, 2025
For decades, he also relished his role as a brutally insulting critic — sometimes of the bands he worked with — and a gadfly who pushed uncomfortable buttons about race, politics and sex.
From New York Times ● May 14, 2024
Concluding that economics, not politics, held the key to black success in America, Moore started a new career as a corporate gadfly, disrupting stockholders' meetings with pointed questions about racial policies and hiring practices.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
The Legislature was coming after the gadflies like Gilbert.
From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2025
As is quite common for these kinds of third-party gadflies, Oliver has made a career out of running unsuccessfully in multiple federal elections.
From Slate ● Mar. 12, 2024
Working the polls has long been something that retirees did, along with nice church ladies, neighborhood busybodies, local political gadflies and civics geeks.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 8, 2022
In a politically engaged place like West Hollywood — a 1.9-square-mile city of 35,000, with no shortage of drama or gadflies — people tend to notice.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 5, 2022
Above him buzzed wasps, flies, gnats and gadflies.
From Little Tom by Tille, V.
Vocabulary lists containing gadfly
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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"Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963)
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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
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