How to Use accost in a Sentence

accost

verb
  • He was accosted by three gang members on the subway.
  • She was so famous that people would accost her on the street and ask for an autograph.
  • Boone smirks when fans accost him for just That One Thing.
    Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY, 5 Oct. 2021
  • No one accosted us, though strangers loved to talk about the car.
    Lauren Oster, Redbook, 26 June 2018
  • An old man lurks in the woods, accosting people to ... pull their pants down.
    Rumaan Alam, The New Republic, 2 Dec. 2019
  • No child should be walking down the hall or in a locker room and be accosted with a noose around their neck.
    Essence.com, 15 Sep. 2017
  • But outside the plant the white strikers accosted Rouse and threatened him.
    Dave Lieber, Dallas News, 14 Apr. 2023
  • After Booth fired the fatal shot, Rathbone tried to accost him.
    Michael Tomasky, The New Republic, 6 Sep. 2022
  • Brown had to confront angry critics as well, some of whom accosted him on the street.
    Rachel Swan, San Francisco Chronicle, 16 Apr. 2018
  • The deputy was charged with one count of accosting a child for immoral purposes.
    Ben Brasch, Washington Post, 1 Oct. 2023
  • Reggie accosts Sweet Pa and a fight almost breaks out between the football team and the Serpents.
    Amy MacKelden, Harper's BAZAAR, 3 May 2018
  • On the third night the truck appears, Ally accosts a person in a hazmat suit spraying her lawn.
    Amy MacKelden, Harper's BAZAAR, 20 Sep. 2017
  • The two hopped over the fare turnstiles and ran up the east stairwell, where Webb was chased and accosted by four people who punched and kicked him, police said.
    Deanese Williams-Harris, chicagotribune.com, 5 Dec. 2019
  • He gets accosted by a gang of tough tweens in a post apocalyptic hellscape.
    Matt Miller, Esquire, 18 Jan. 2018
  • Donham, who died in April, accused Black teenager Till of whistling at her and accosting her in 1955.
    Tori Otten, The New Republic, 5 June 2023
  • Kaiser said that some base workers have been accosted while in uniform.
    Author: Colleen Shalby, Anchorage Daily News, 11 Feb. 2020
  • The masked gunmen, dressed all in black, accosted the workers in a hallway and forced them into a room at gunpoint, the police said.
    New York Times, 8 Mar. 2020
  • In the first incident, the student described the man who accosted her as in his early 30s with dirty blond hair and a goatee.
    Los Angeles Times, 26 Sep. 2019
  • Sirens of ambulances and fire trucks wailed as the police chased and accosted the protesters.
    Chris Buckley, New York Times, 1 Oct. 2019
  • Drivers for top teams like Red Bull and Mercedes are accosted by media and fans.
    David Hill, Rolling Stone, 14 Jan. 2024
  • During the months those episodes aired, the couple were accosted by locals with strong opinions.
    New York Times, 5 July 2019
  • Biden isn’t the only candidate to have been accosted at a campaign event.
    Alexandra Jaffe, BostonGlobe.com, 17 Mar. 2020
  • Twice they were accosted by the curious predators, which attacked the boat's hull.
    Leah Silverman, Town & Country, 27 Oct. 2017
  • The teenager was accosted over his Georgetown jacket and shot in the neck while walking to class at a Baltimore school.
    NBC News, 26 Nov. 2019
  • During the speech the Prime Minister was accosted by a heckler, who approached her lectern to hand her a P45 — the British equivalent of a pink slip.
    Dan Stewart, Time, 4 Oct. 2017
  • In 1921, a white woman accused a Black man of accosting her, and white rioters wanted the man released to them.
    Sabrina Leboeuf, Baltimore Sun, 6 Mar. 2023
  • The last thing any Twitter user wants is to be accosted by one’s followers.
    Elizabeth Lopatto, The Verge, 5 Oct. 2018
  • The culprit is a female sea otter, who accosts the wave riders, seizing and even damaging their surfboards in the process.
    Annie Roth, New York Times, 12 July 2023
  • Last year a video went viral of three men in revealing drag being accosted by police in the eastern city of Suzhou.
    The Economist, 18 July 2019
  • The 15-year-old victim was walking home when he was accosted by three male attackers.
    Jeff Weiner, OrlandoSentinel.com, 31 Mar. 2018

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