How to Use death squad in a Sentence

death squad

noun
Definition of death squadnext
  • Later, these tractors would be used to tear down the fence and open the way for Hamas’s death squads.
    — Assaf Orion, Foreign Affairs, 3 Nov. 2023
  • The mid-1970s in Argentina saw the start of the Dirty War, in which right-wing death squads killed tens of thousands.
    — Washington Post, 20 Sep. 2019
  • The All-Stars trained and played under the hostile eyes of armed thugs managed by the head of Trujillo’s death squads.
    — Paul Dickson, WSJ, 11 Apr. 2018
  • The group has sold patches and T-shirts adorned with the acronym and celebrating Mr. Pinochet’s death squads.
    — Alanna Durkin Richer, Michale Kunzelman, and Lindsay Whitehurst , The Christian Science Monitor, 9 May 2023
  • The rest had been killed in Nazi concentration camps or by roving SS death squads.
    — Washington Post, 8 Oct. 2019
  • That the United States had been running death squads under the cover of a police program called Phoenix.
    — Jeff Stein, Newsweek, 31 Jan. 2018
  • In the chaos that ensued, the police dispatched death squads to pursue prisoners who had escaped from the city’s jail.
    — Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, 17 July 2023
  • Those documents were later used to seal the fates of the Nazi death squad commanders during the trial.
    — Minyvonne Burke, NBC News, 8 Apr. 2023
  • Why did Marian think that these randos could go up against a Danish death squad?
    — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 7 June 2021
  • Mr Uribe appointed officials with links to right-wing death squads.
    — The Economist, 27 June 2018
  • A decade later Santiago Uribe is now on trial for leading a death squad known as the 12 Apostles.
    — Washington Post, 16 June 2018
  • His death squad was accused of gunning down dozens of migrants trying to sail to Europe, according to a survivor of the massacre.
    — New York Times, 25 June 2019
  • Many who fear being nabbed by death squads have also fled to El Salvador, Honduras and Florida.
    — Maria Verza, The Seattle Times, 25 Oct. 2018
  • South Africa, conspiracy theorists point out, was the party with the death squad contacts handy.
    — Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic, 10 June 2020
  • Another, a ranch hand, described a death squad boss roaming the property freely on horseback.
    — New York Times, 8 July 2018
  • Zimbabwe has been ruled by Robert Mugabe since 1980 with infamous death squads.
    — Toby Zinman, Philly.com, 8 Oct. 2017
  • To posit such an America is not quite as absurd as simply to posit a Mugabe who doesn’t deploy North Korean–trained death squads.
    — Helen Andrews, National Review, 18 Dec. 2017
  • As an opposition senator in the 2000s, Mr. Petro exposed ties between right-wing death squads and Colombian politicians, dozens of whom went to prison.
    — John Otis, WSJ, 25 May 2018
  • At least 60 people were also killed by death squads set up by members of Spain’s security forces and clandestine far-right groups.
    — Washington Post, 5 May 2018
  • Duterte has said testimony linking him to the death squads was fabricated.
    — Bloomberg.com, 15 Mar. 2017
  • In El Salvador, Henry had learned to distrust the police, who often worked for rival gangs or paramilitary death squads.
    — Hannah Dreier, Daily Intelligencer, 2 Apr. 2018
  • That didn't happen, but what had taken its place were Shia death squads seeking revenge for Sunni insurgent attacks.
    — Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, 27 Oct. 2019
  • Arena was founded in 1981 by Roberto d’Aubuisson, whose calls for the extermination of Communists by death squads were embraced by the country’s oligarchy and far right.
    — Sam Roberts, New York Times, 9 Oct. 2017
  • Untold decades of backing despots and death squads in Latin America produced the multitudes of desperate migrants who have come to our borders, pleading for help.
    — Kevin Baker, Harper's Magazine, 27 Apr. 2020
  • His career almost derailed in the late 1990s, when two members of Congress accused him of lying under oath while testifying about Haitian death squads.
    — Clay Risen, New York Times, 8 July 2023
  • That said, the visiting stars had a bit too good a time, diminishing their on-field performance and resulting in the head of the government's death squad being attached to their team's management.
    — Mark Z. Barabak, latimes.com, 26 Mar. 2018
  • After running away from Fjölnir’s death squad, Amleth is found by Vikings and trained to be a warrior who raids villages, grabs spears out of midair and throws them back at his attackers, and stands by as women and children are sold off and killed.
    — Vulture, 27 Apr. 2022
  • That was another era — of death squads, the Reagan Doctrine against communism, guerrillas wielding red banners and AK-47s.
    — Washington Post, 19 Oct. 2019
  • Maduro has responded to public protests by jailing and killing dissenters; death squads aligned with the government have assassinated at least seven thousand people in the past year and a half.
    — Jonathan Blitzer, The New Yorker, 16 Sep. 2019
  • The Pinochet government was notorious for assembling death squads that murdered their leftist enemies.
    — Livia Albeck-Ripka, New York Times, 8 May 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'death squad.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: