How to Use unreinforced in a Sentence

unreinforced

adjective
  • In seconds, the unreinforced glass gave way in a single sheet.
    Sarah D. Wire, Los Angeles Times, 4 Oct. 2021
  • Only a single, unreinforced guardrail stood between the traffic and a ravine.
    Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 11 June 2018
  • The event was in the basement of what was then four stories of unreinforced brick, meaning there was no steel supporting the structure, completed in 1914.
    Courtney Tanner, The Salt Lake Tribune, 28 Mar. 2021
  • Back to the future Sporting the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome, the Pantheon was one of the architectural feats of the ancient world, and its prestige remains to this day.
    Ashley Strickland, CNN, 7 Jan. 2023
  • In 1910, construction of the Rocky River Bridge, the longest, unreinforced concrete span in the world, also contributed to the increase of traffic.
    Carol Kovach, cleveland, 30 Aug. 2022
  • Today's engineers wouldn't dare build an unreinforced dome of that size.
    Jonathan Schifman, Popular Mechanics, 12 Oct. 2017
  • Los Angeles was one of the first cities in California to require retrofitting of unreinforced brick buildings.
    Los Angeles Times, 11 June 2021
  • The other, a six story rental apartment building, was apparently built in the last year atop the unreinforced structure of a decades-old four-story building.
    Washington Post, 29 Sep. 2017
  • Save Portland Buildings formed last year in response to a proposal that would require seismic retrofitting of the city's 1,600 unreinforced brick buildings.
    Samantha Swindler, OregonLive.com, 15 Apr. 2018
  • The Romans used this marvelous stuff throughout their empire — in viaducts, breakwaters, coliseums and even temples like the Pantheon, which still stands in central Rome and still boasts the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world.
    M. Mitchell Waldrop, Discover Magazine, 26 Nov. 2022
  • Brittle structures and unreinforced brick walls came crashing down.
    Elise Takahama, BostonGlobe.com, 27 Mar. 2018
  • Rome’s Pantheon stands defiant 2,000 years after it was built, its marble floors sheltered under the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome.
    WIRED, 3 Feb. 2023
  • In Seattle, about one-third of all unreinforced-masonry buildings have been retrofitted.
    Bruce Barcott, Outside Online, 25 Aug. 2011
  • So Kristin had been stunned to see Miss New York stroll into preliminaries in an unreinforced, civilian-grade bathing suit, her silhouetted nipples leading the way.
    Washington Post, 23 Aug. 2021
  • Inmates have bored holes in the building’s unreinforced concrete large enough to hide contraband weapons, drugs and phones, corrections officials have acknowledged.
    Jerry Mitchell, ProPublica, 12 Jan. 2020
  • The restoration project revealed deeper problems: behind coats of paint and plaster, the chapel’s unreinforced concrete interior walls were crumbling.
    Mark Lamster, Dallas News, 24 June 2021
  • Many homes built recently are hybrids, combining traditional styles with unreinforced masonry and tile roofs too heavy for the structures when they are shaken by quakes.
    Elaine Kurtenbach, The Seattle Times, 2 Oct. 2018
  • The combination of a shallow fault and old, unreinforced masonry buildings led to widespread devastation in the earthquake that struck central Italy early Wednesday.
    Dan Bilefsky and Henry Fountain, New York Times, 24 Aug. 2016
  • City records show Portland’s unreinforced masonry buildings on average are 90 years old.
    oregonlive, 23 Oct. 2019
  • The council voted 4-0 to repeal the ordinance and to formally create an unreinforced masonry workgroup.
    oregonlive, 23 Oct. 2019
  • In New Zealand, Brower wanted older buildings to be covered by building codes and for regulators to prioritize fixing those parts that would fall off first in a quake, like parapets and unreinforced masonry.
    Nick Perry, Star Tribune, 18 Feb. 2021
  • For The Times) Older single-family homes, by and large, are considered safer than bigger brittle concrete, unreinforced masonry and soft-story apartment buildings.
    Los Angeles Times, 11 June 2021
  • The remaining walls, constructed with unreinforced masonry, could not remain under city code.
    oregonlive, 12 Dec. 2022
  • Many California cities prohibit putting unreinforced brick chimneys in new homes.
    Los Angeles Times, 11 June 2021
  • Hills Construction specializes in seismic retrofits and workers are busy reinforcing homes, a year after the Wasatch Front's strongest earthquake on record shook unreinforced masonry structures.
    Brian Maffly, The Salt Lake Tribune, 19 Mar. 2021
  • Mobile homes likely sustain heavy damage, and unreinforced masonry walls can tumble.
    Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 26 June 2019
  • The famous Pantheon in Rome boasts the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome—an architectural marvel that has endured for millennia, thanks to the incredible durability of ancient Roman concrete.
    Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 6 Jan. 2023
  • Officials determined that the most vulnerable buildings are the older ones and those built from unreinforced masonry or under-reinforced concrete.
    USA TODAY, 3 July 2019
  • Thousands of Oregon buildings were built before a Cascadia quake’s scope of devastation was fully understood, and many of them were constructed using unreinforced masonry, which poses a risk of collapse.
    oregonlive, 21 Oct. 2021
  • Some communities, such as cities in the Inland Empire, haven’t yet ordered the demolition or retrofit of older brick buildings, also known as unreinforced masonry buildings, which Los Angeles addressed in 1981.
    Rong-Gong Lin Ii, Los Angeles Times, 22 Mar. 2023

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