If the last few days have reminded us of anything, it’s that the COVID pandemic is far from over, and being fully vaccinated does not give someone an __________ shield.

— Nancy Armour, USA TODAY, 20 July 2021

Analysts warned that Ukrainian politicians have an interest in exaggerating Russia’s troubles to rally morale and __________ Russian troops.

— Andrew Higgins, BostonGlobe.com, 14 Aug. 2022

Hong Kong had the _________ honor of coming in first place (for air pollution), with New York City, Geneva, London and Tokyo rounding out the top five.

— Lilit Marcus, CNN, 23 June 2022

Cohn’s suits were gloriously _________, with rhinestones, fringe and leather patchwork.

— Amanda Petrusich, Smithsonian Magazine, 29 Mar. 2022

He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy ________ a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.

— Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, 1876

Still, voluntarily allowing surgeons to carve into your otherwise healthy body to extract an organ and plug it into someone else is … what’s the word, ____________?

— Gordon Monson, The Salt Lake Tribune, 16 May 2022

Although more than 100,000 Russian troops are massed on Ukraine’s border, Putin faulted the West for causing tensions, depicting a deliberate attempt to ________ Moscow into making a military move.

— Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times, 1 Feb. 2022

Vin Scully, the gentlemanly, yarn-spinning play-by-play man whose _________ voice provided the soundtrack to Dodger baseball from Brooklyn to Los Angeles for a jaw-dropping 67 seasons, has died.

— Mike Barnes, The Hollywood Reporter, 2 Aug. 2022

There’s really no other way to put it: The response from law enforcement and politicians has been an __________ failure through and through.

— Fidel Martinez, Los Angeles Times, 21 July 2022