How to Use derrick in a Sentence

derrick

noun
  • The heat from the fire caused the derrick to collapse, which spread the flames across the site.
    CBS News, 22 Jan. 2018
  • The lines from the derrick were attached to the center of the spire to keep it straight.
    Jonathan Schifman, Popular Mechanics, 27 Mar. 2019
  • The crown block has a pulley system and is located at the top of the derrick.
    Dallas News, 21 Oct. 2022
  • On the floor in front of the table are two model oil derricks, painted gold.
    Nick Chrastil, Slate Magazine, 16 Oct. 2017
  • An oil derrick stands above the plains north of Amarillo, Texas.
    Stephanie Yang, WSJ, 9 Mar. 2018
  • Minarets pierced the mild moon, so different from the oil derricks the House of Nobel had erected.
    Joshua Kucera, Slate Magazine, 6 Feb. 2017
  • Baldwin Hills and its crown of oil derricks hovered in the hazy distance.
    Scott Garner, latimes.com, 15 Dec. 2017
  • Rumors surfaced that the derrick was there to lift a 60-foot flagpole.
    Jonathan Schifman, Popular Mechanics, 27 Mar. 2019
  • Among them is Nova, who, as a child, watched her father get crushed by an oil derrick.
    Ella Riley-Adams, New York Times, 21 Aug. 2023
  • In the 1920s, much of the Los Angeles Basin was covered with a forest of wooden oil derricks.
    George Skelton, Los Angeles Times, 3 Apr. 2023
  • One stevedore told me he has seen divers sent down to tie chains to cars that fall into the harbor so that the derrick could lift them back out.
    Rowan Moore Gerety, Harper's magazine, 10 June 2019
  • More than a century ago, the area was home to oil derricks owned by the Hancock family.
    Vanessa Lawrence, ELLE Decor, 6 Feb. 2018
  • Huntington Beach High School’s football team is still called the Oilers, and its icon is an oil derrick.
    Laura Blasey, Los Angeles Times, 12 Oct. 2021
  • The explosion at the drilling site near Quinton, about 100 miles southeast of Tulsa, sent plumes of black smoke into the air and left a derrick crumpled on the ground.
    CBS News, 23 Jan. 2018
  • Now several thousand people live and work here, and the oil fields are chockablock with derricks, many as close as 10 feet apart.
    Photographs and Text By Adam Dean, New York Times, 22 May 2017
  • Zora Chung, the company’s cofounder and CFO, points to an oil derrick lodged in the startup’s parking lot.
    Aarian Marshall, Wired, 2 Nov. 2021
  • More than 600 bucket, utility and trailer trucks, and derricks to dig holes in the islands’ rocky terrain were shipped in by barge.
    Dino Grandoni, Washington Post, 10 Jan. 2018
  • He and Shawn Camp had visited this oil derrick museum and there was a windmill with a barb wire nest that some crows had made.
    Andrew Dansby, Houston Chronicle, 13 Aug. 2019
  • As a dinghy approached, a newish Infiniti FX35 appeared high above the Magestic’s deck, tethered to the derrick with thick nylon straps at the ends of steel cables.
    Rowan Moore Gerety, Harper's magazine, 10 June 2019
  • Today, County Road 49 is so crowded with oil derricks and tanks that some residents call it the Frack Freeway.
    Julie Turkewitz, New York Times, 31 May 2018
  • Through this seawater, the IODP team lowered kilometers of pipe from a derrick more than 60 meters high.
    Jennifer Frazer, Scientific American, 4 Mar. 2021
  • In the 1960s, as oil became the dominant industry in town, petroleum was added to the name and the logo became a shrimp in a hard hat wrapped around an oil derrick.
    Nick Chrastil, Slate Magazine, 16 Oct. 2017
  • Start with the city’s beloved incarnation of Pegasus, the mythical red neon horse who spreads her wings on a 22-foot oil derrick in front of the Omni Hotel.
    Ava Graham, Dallas News, 21 May 2023
  • What remains is a ghost town with a 19th-century residence, schoolhouse, derrick, and barn.
    Los Angeles Magazine, 22 Feb. 2018
  • At various points in its history, the Sandy Jug has also included a towering oil derrick and an 8-ball stopper painted at the top of the jug.
    Mrussell, oregonlive, 9 Aug. 2023
  • The state Capitol itself sits atop a giant oilfield, and an oil derrick stands outside the building as a symbol of the industry’s importance.
    Washington Post, 23 May 2017
  • The helmet featured a Columbia Blue oil derrick outlined in scarlet.
    Nate Davis, USA TODAY, 4 May 2023
  • Indian burial grounds, oil derricks and the city’s sordid, riotous history all come up.
    Benjamin Oreskes, www.latimes.com, 7 June 2018
  • On Harrison’s way out of town, in Santa Paula, eager locals clambered aboard his train to present him with a 5-foot-tall model of an oil derrick, made entirely of flowers.
    Los Angeles Times, 15 Feb. 2022
  • Roughly 16 miles from Texas A&M University, the property features eight ponds, a 7-acre fishing lake, an equestrian barn, sports, court, putting green and a pool with an oil derrick.
    Darla Guillen Gilthorpe, Houston Chronicle, 28 Jan. 2020

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