How to Use martial law in a Sentence

martial law

noun
  • The government has imposed martial law throughout the city to stop the riots.
  • And with martial law, all men ages 18 to 60 were required to join the army.
    Anna Conkling, Rolling Stone, 24 Mar. 2022
  • The best way to shut up the sources is to win lots of games, not declare martial law on them.
    Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 6 Aug. 2019
  • All Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 must stay in the country per martial law.
    Katya Soldak, Forbes, 8 June 2022
  • The area is now under martial law, but many workers have vowed not to give up.
    New York Times, 19 Mar. 2021
  • The lockdown was like martial law; people put up with it.
    Stuart Emmrich, Vogue, 15 Apr. 2021
  • Even Greene’s call for martial law likely is not enough.
    Ronald Sullivan, The Conversation, 9 May 2022
  • The next day, the National Guard came and declared martial law, and the charges against Rowland were dropped.
    Paul Davidson, USA TODAY, 16 June 2020
  • In some parts of the world, new emergency laws have revived old fears of martial law.
    Selam Gebrekidan, New York Times, 30 Mar. 2020
  • There was talk of martial law happening and all these things.
    Patrick Lyons, Billboard, 13 Apr. 2023
  • Two male students fall in love in Taiwan in 1987, as martial law ends.
    Carly Mallenbaum, USA TODAY, 24 Nov. 2020
  • The city was placed under martial law and the National Guard was brought in to halt the violence.
    Claudia Harmata, PEOPLE.com, 18 Dec. 2019
  • At the very beginning of March, a rumor spread that martial law was about to be declared.
    Maxim Osipov, The Atlantic, 16 May 2022
  • The strongman praised the martial law era and in some ways emulated it with his bloody six-year war on drugs.
    Regine Cabato, Washington Post, 16 June 2022
  • Ukraine says adoptions will resume three months after the end of martial law.
    David L. Stern, Washington Post, 9 Sep. 2023
  • He was arrested in the central province of Samar in 1972, the year martial law was declared in the Philippines.
    Jes Aznar Jason Gutierrez, New York Times, 21 Sep. 2022
  • When martial law was declared, my family left the Philippines and came to the United States.
    Eric Johnson, Recode, 26 Nov. 2018
  • The current state of martial law was expected to conclude on April 25.
    Bloomberg.com, 19 Apr. 2022
  • Textbooks have glossed over the consequences of martial law.
    New York Times, 7 June 2022
  • Her father stayed in Ukraine, where, under martial law, men of fighting age cannot leave the country.
    Washington Post, 21 Mar. 2022
  • At the start of the war, Ukraine imposed martial law, barring all males between ages 18 and 60 from exiting the country.
    Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 17 Mar. 2022
  • With martial law having been declared in Ukraine, all able-bodied men ages 18 to 60 were required to stay and be available to join the army.
    NBC News, 8 Apr. 2022
  • This is the first time martial law has been imposed in the Eastern European country.
    Stavros Agorakis, Vox, 29 Nov. 2018
  • Li said in a speech in May 1989 explaining the decision to impose martial law.
    Isabella Steger, Quartz, 23 July 2019
  • Video from the region also showed tanks heading through Stepanakert as martial law was declared.
    Fox News, 27 Sep. 2020
  • Pérez suspended civil rights, declared martial law and put Venezuela’s military on the streets for the first time in decades.
    Kristina Mani, The Conversation, 8 June 2020
  • Their split added to the turmoil that gripped the country after the end of martial law imposed by the Marcos dictatorship.
    Camille Elemia, New York Times, 10 Jan. 2023
  • The attack took place in an area of the city that is under martial law, and the court action appeared to be the first time the death sentence has been imposed under the junta’s rule.
    Associated Press Staff, chicagotribune.com, 10 Apr. 2021
  • Why? Claude Joseph, the foreign minister and acting prime minister at that time, declared a state of siege and imposed martial law.
    Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald, 20 June 2024
  • But from the very beginning, this vision was never fulfilled—after all, for nearly two decades after the signing of the declaration, Palestinians in Israel lived under martial law.
    Ilan Z. Baron, Foreign Affairs, 12 Aug. 2024

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