How to Use riven in a Sentence

riven

adjective
Definition of rivennext
Synonyms for rivennext
  • Its leaves were glossy and dark green, its bark riven like a mountain range seen from above.
    — Zoë Schlanger, The Atlantic, 23 Oct. 2023
  • And in this riven piece of steel – and the nearly 500 others like it all across the country – the violence of that day lives on.
    — CBS News, 5 Sep. 2021
  • These moves have further inflamed an already deeply riven country and drawn the largest protests in over a decade.
    — Ilan Ben Zion, Anchorage Daily News, 3 Mar. 2023
  • The method yields images that are streaked and cracked, with surfaces that are alternately riven and raised.
    — Mark Jenkins, Washington Post, 20 Oct. 2023
  • Heroism, riven with risk, is available only to those who take action.
    — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 22 Dec. 2023
  • This riven Martian arctic was a mystery to scientists for over forty years.
    — Joseph Calamia, Discover Magazine, 19 Nov. 2019
  • The sandstone here is riven with streaks and ribbons of pastel, rust, and chalk—dull pinks, reds, and oranges that glow in the noonday sun, and only grow more dramatic as the light disappears.
    — Hazlitt, 2 Aug. 2023
  • Images shared on social media, and captured by journalists, show entire neighborhoods riven by the surging flood.
    — Louisa Loveluck, Washington Post, 12 Sep. 2023
  • When the burgeoning military battle is over, the movement may be critical to rebuilding a country riven by years of political schisms, already overwhelmed by grief and the demands of war.
    — Steve Hendrix, Washington Post, 24 Oct. 2023
  • Few area residents would ever guess that another culture thrived here for thousands of years amid a landscape of oak and walnut woodlands riven with waterways teeming with steelhead trout and prowled by wolves and grizzly bears.
    — Louis Sahagún, Los Angeles Times, 9 Oct. 2023
  • Nowhere is the riven soul of industrial capitalism on starker display than in Birmingham, Alabama.
    — Robert Kunzig, National Geographic, 13 Oct. 2020
  • Ultimately, American Gun is an indictment on a paranoid, apocalyptic country, riven with people who cannot help but see their neighbors, as well as their own government, as perpetual threats that must be met with deadly force.
    — Colin Dickey, The New Republic, 23 Oct. 2023
  • Nearly a century later, Iraq remained too riven with ethnic and sectarian frictions to support anything resembling a Western-style democracy.
    — Loren Thompson, Forbes, 14 Apr. 2022
  • Policymakers and analysts worry that the future will be riven with divisions, with countries separated into hostile, competitive blocs and geopolitics becoming a zero-sum game.
    — Bilahari Kausikan, Foreign Affairs, 11 Apr. 2023
  • Nearly every institution—campuses, synagogues, families—seemed riven by internal conflict.
    — Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker, 2 Nov. 2023

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