carry the day

in a sentence

While it may be said that the darker and uglier of these opposing conditions has usually carried the day, there must also be recorded in the name of truth a long chronicle in which decency and honor were at moments able to controvert the absolute dominion of the reigning evil, more often than not against rather large odds, whether in Poznan or Yazoo City.†  (source) William Styron, Sophie's Choice, 1976

It and Tom's persuasions presently carried the day.†  (source) Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1876

Nevertheless, the attraction carried the day.†  (source) Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, 1862

What he enjoys most is a motor tour in England, and I think that would have carried the day if the weather had not been so abominable.†  (source) E. M. Forster, Howards End, 1910

Unfortunately, theory don't always carry the day.†  (source) Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle, 2005

But, forasmuch as all favourite legends must be associated with the affections, and as many more people fall in love than commit murder—which it may be hoped, howsoever bad we are, will continue until the end of the world to be the dispensation under which we shall live—the Bleeding Heart, Bleeding Heart, bleeding away story, carried the day by a great majority.†  (source) Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, 1857

But, as few students such as Billy deLois and Henry Trennant spoke at P.T.A. functions or town meetings, the administration's view tended to carry the day.†  (source) Stephen King, Carrie, 1974

Had it rung too flat, or had it felt a hair's breadth too light, generosity had carried the day; but, unhappily for Gurth, the chime was full and true, the zecchin plump, newly coined, and a grain above weight.†  (source) Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, 1820

Theater-going was forbidden in our house, but, with the really cruel intuitiveness of a child, I suspected that the color of this woman's skin would carry the day for me.†  (source) James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son, 1955

Aven them cursed millaishy, the Lord forgive me for swearing, that was the death of him, wid their cowardice, would have carried the day in old times.†  (source) James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers, 1823

She has abilities, however, as well as affections; and it is now a doubtful point whether his cunning, or hers, may finally carry the day; whether, after preventing her from being the wife of Sir Walter, he may not be wheedled and caressed at last into making her the wife of Sir William.†  (source) Jane Austen, Persuasion, 1817

I've seen the Delawares routed, when they desarved more credit than at other times when they've carried the day.†  (source) James Fenimore Cooper, The Pathfinder, 1840

But the determination of both Abigail and John, in combination with their obvious attraction to each other—like steel to a magnet, John said—were more than enough to carry the day.†  (source) David McCullough, John Adams, 2002