How to Use shale in a Sentence

shale

noun
Definition of shalenext
  • This is not to say that the current shale boom was the result of high prices in the 2000s.
    — Michael Lynch, Forbes, 17 May 2022
  • The doctor’s horse, Puffer, slipped on the shale and slid about 10 feet down the mountain.
    — Ed Wiseman, Outdoor Life, 13 Feb. 2023
  • The brown sand stretches hard and smooth to the rock-shale shelf marking the high-tide line.
    — Washington Post, 4 June 2019
  • That push has stunted growth in all but one of the oil fields that fueled the shale boom.
    — Benoit Faucon, WSJ, 17 Oct. 2021
  • That makes shale a very attractive bet in the post-Covid world.
    — Dan Eberhart, Forbes, 20 Mar. 2021
  • In Houston and throughout the US, the shale market is quite busy.
    — Ilene Bassler, Houston Chronicle, 12 July 2018
  • But worse than the discomfort was the way that the shale sucked away my body’s vital heat.
    — Jim Carmichel, Outdoor Life, 25 July 2024
  • Barb trips on some loose shale and tumbles into the canyon.
    — Colin Nissan, The New Yorker, 22 Oct. 2021
  • My brown daughter by the slate-gray sea puts broken shells and bits of shale in stacks.
    — Kelly Scott Franklin, National Review, 17 Feb. 2022
  • By 2019, the shale boom had made the U.S. not just the world's top consumer of oil, but the world's largest producer, as well.
    — Katherine Dunn, Fortune, 4 Nov. 2020
  • The deal involves oil assets in the northern part of the Eagle Ford shale basin in South Texas.
    — Benoît Morenne, WSJ, 21 Feb. 2023
  • And most of the increase has occurred since 2005, when shale-gas came onstream.
    — Ian Palmer, Forbes, 24 Feb. 2021
  • Under this technique, drillers bore through thousands of feet of earth to reach the shale.
    — Timothy Puko, WSJ, 8 Oct. 2020
  • Riverstone Holdings LLC rode the shale boom to big profits.
    — Ryan Dezember, WSJ, 26 Aug. 2021
  • That means shale could once again come to the rescue if high oil prices become an issue.
    — Dan Eberhart, Forbes, 6 Dec. 2021
  • But Somers was surprised at how easily the shale gave way.
    — Popular Mechanics, 14 Apr. 2023
  • The way to read the deal is as a bet on U.S. shale fracking and hedge against the left’s anti-fossil fuels policies.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 11 Oct. 2023
  • But the bigger problem for the shale industry is the lack of new wells being drilled.
    — Kevin Crowley, Fortune, 22 Apr. 2020
  • Above that aquifer and a layer of shale lies an upper aquifer in the Hopi mesas called the Toreva Sandstone Aquifer.
    — Ian James, AZCentral.com, 7 Dec. 2020
  • Few of the shale boom’s sideshows have flamed out quite like Wisconsin’s Northern White sand.
    — Alexander Osipovich, WSJ, 8 Oct. 2020
  • The shale boom transformed the U.S. from a net importer to a net exporter of petroleum and gas.
    — Christopher M. Matthews, WSJ, 30 July 2022
  • Frackers struggled to turn a profit amid the shale boom’s drilling frenzy.
    — Kate Aronoff, The New Republic, 10 Feb. 2022
  • That would be a win-win for shale and American consumers.
    — Dan Eberhart, Forbes, 6 Dec. 2021
  • Each cell starts as a hole in the ground lined with a clay-like substance made from shale and a sturdy plastic liner.
    — Natalie Wallington, Kansas City Star, 22 Apr. 2024
  • The path was simply a horizontal shelf of the shale and limestone bedrock, maybe eight feet wide.
    — Rolling Stone, 13 Oct. 2021
  • The shale wells will return someday, when another boom roars through the oil patch.
    — Richard Mason, Arkansas Online, 20 Sep. 2020
  • Our region made the misstep of putting too many eggs in the shale and the petrochemical basket.
    — Bill McKibben, The New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2021
  • The soft shale brings runners to the Junior Pole and beyond into the chute, an open area made dusty by warm weather.
    — Author: Kat Sorensen, Anchorage Daily News, 3 July 2018
  • Like the shale boom, the coming supply surge is a sudden change in dynamics.
    — Clifford Krauss, New York Times, 3 Nov. 2019
  • Given the nation’s fiscal needs, even a simple step like allowing fracking for natural gas in the extension of the Eagle Ford shale could reduce the country’s $5-10 billion gas import bill.
    — Michael Lynch, Forbes, 19 Sep. 2024

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