boondoggle
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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I thought the rejection was the right call, because the proposal struck me as a private boondoggle, with no designated customer for the water and a slurry of environmental hazards.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 11, 2026
Critics called it a boondoggle, but WPA got millions of Americans back to work.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 14, 2026
Was it an exciting new form of entertainment, or a boondoggle?
From BBC ● Mar. 30, 2026
He vehemently denied that the United States was entering into another long-term boondoggle in the Middle East.
From Salon ● Mar. 2, 2026
The United States has not embarked upon its formidable program of space exploration in order to make or perpetuate a gigantic astronautic boondoggle.
From The Practical Values of Space Exploration Report of the Committee on Science and Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives, Eighty-Sixth Congress, Second Session by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Science and Astronautics.
And no rules at the Guardian, apparently, regarding outrageous boondoggles and ocean-going junkets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2025
Discovery CEO David Zaslav, in contrast with the preceding AT&T regime, has rejected big streaming movies as boondoggles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 22, 2022
I want to know about the boondoggles and the scandalous demolitions and the gems; the engineering follies and the perfect streets; the gargoyles and the starchitects and the bars with walls like old gorgonzola.
From Slate ● Dec. 8, 2022
And triumphs such as “Hamilton” and boondoggles like “King Kong.”
From Washington Post ● Nov. 4, 2022
The Underdowns don’t like to come out here in the boondoggles, so believe you me this was an occasion.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
“What’s the word — boondoggled? Hornswaggled?” the former mailman and Vietnam War veteran said with an easy chuckle while seated at a table off the deserted bar at the Hollywood Roosevelt on a recent afternoon.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2016
How do you think this cautionary tale plays that such boondoggling won’t happen again?
From Salon ● Sep. 19, 2019
I think that you can’t ever protect yourself from boondoggling.
From Salon ● Sep. 19, 2019
All U.S. good-neighborly schemes are not tainted with boondoggling.
From Time Magazine Archive
Last week this bureaucratic boondoggling angered the White House, which regards a commercial jet fleet as a transport reserve needed for national defense.
From Time Magazine Archive
He knows what is boondoggling and what is not.
From The Armed Forces Officer Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 by United States. Dept. of Defense
Vocabulary lists containing boondoggle
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