smoke-filled room

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Maybe CFB should go Waymo, blame the robots for any uproar about gatekeeping and big-school elitism and let the smoke-filled room return to cognacs and afternoon naps.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 22, 2025

"We didn't want people fumbling about in the dark, in possibly a smoke-filled room, trying to undo a lock," she said.

From BBC • Oct. 15, 2025

A rural Ohio newspaperman who had risen to U.S. senator, Harding was a reluctant compromise candidate during the 1920 Republican convention in Chicago, emerging from a proverbially smoke-filled room.

From Seattle Times • Jul. 13, 2023

Back in the old days of the trusts, it would be the proverbial smoke-filled room with a bunch of fat dudes in three piece suits, smoking cigars, fixing prices.

From New York Times • Mar. 20, 2023

He yelled remonstrance as she tried to draw him back into the smoke-filled room.

From Ethel Morton at Chautauqua by Smith, Mabell S. C. (Mabell Shippie Clarke)