as in dead metaphor
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Recent Examples of code word
This isn’t the first time online communities have attempted to use phrases or code words to organize.
—
Ct Jones, Rolling Stone, 3 Feb. 2025
Rana recommends coming up with a secret code word to use with your family.
—Audrey Nguyen, NPR, 24 Dec. 2024
The guidelines had the opposite effect, encouraging streamers to lead with the code words they’d been barred from: a push against standards meant to actually censor players.
—Megan Farokhmanesh, WIRED, 20 Dec. 2024
The 22-year-old posted a picture on social media with a meeting room white board in the background and, on the white board, code words for plays used by the Lions were included in the photo.
—Andy Scholes, CNN, 5 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for code word
Ct Jones, Rolling Stone, 3 Feb. 2025
Rana recommends coming up with a secret code word to use with your family.
—Audrey Nguyen, NPR, 24 Dec. 2024
The guidelines had the opposite effect, encouraging streamers to lead with the code words they’d been barred from: a push against standards meant to actually censor players.
—Megan Farokhmanesh, WIRED, 20 Dec. 2024
The 22-year-old posted a picture on social media with a meeting room white board in the background and, on the white board, code words for plays used by the Lions were included in the photo.
—Andy Scholes, CNN, 5 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for code word
Recent Examples of Synonyms for code word
Noun
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Many of our emotion terms are references to states of the body—we’re downcast, bent out of shape, head over heels, shaken up, down in the mouth—which have slowly rigidified into dead metaphor.—
Nikhil Krishnan,
The New Yorker,
1 Aug. 2022
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This shift reminds us that dead metaphors aren’t always terminally dead.—
Rob Nixon,
Smithsonian,
23 Mar. 2018
Noun
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In 2025, there is no single issue like slavery dividing America, and that makes the demise of Britain's Liberal Party a better analogy for today's Democrats.—
Newsweek Staff,
MSNBC Newsweek,
4 Apr. 2025
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When there’s no pathogen present, the two kinases are bound together — thus the handcuffs analogy.—
Paul Smaglik,
Discover Magazine,
28 Mar. 2025
Noun
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No metaphors or similes or hyperbolic language needed here – your kids are next.—
Rob Gagnon,
Hartford Courant,
25 Mar. 2025
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Her father was a scientist and worked for NASA, so her work, including The Body’s Question and Life on Mars, is infused with the cosmos and space and all these metaphors and similes tied to the most mysterious places in the universe.—
Lisa Wong Macabasco,
Vogue,
22 Feb. 2025
Noun
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That euphemism for prostitution represents a change in cultural standards, some would say the degradation of traditional ethics about women and men and social roles.—
Armond White,
National Review,
5 Mar. 2025
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The phrase is typically a euphemism for leaving discreetly, often to use the restroom.—
Russel Honoré,
Newsweek,
5 Mar. 2025
Noun
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Through vivid metaphors, Dende paints a picture of unwavering devotion, comparing his connection to his partner to classic, inseparable duos.—
Michael Saponara,
Billboard,
10 Mar. 2025
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The sudden pivot toward isolation and danger, amid the excitement of new adulthood, will likely conjure familiar feelings of the early pandemic, but the film is more than just a linear metaphor.—
Siddhant Adlakha,
Variety,
9 Mar. 2025
Noun
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Here, instead, she’s swayed by a dead Diana softly squeezing her hand and kindly hinting — the dead Diana is an ace at tactful circumlocution — that now is the time to show a mourning nation some emotion.—
Tom Gliatto,
Peoplemag,
16 Nov. 2023
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By condensing Balzac’s opus to a few paragraphs, Barthelme was having a laugh not just at his predecessor’s genteel circumlocution—his tendency to describe buildings and manufacturing procedures and family trees in lavish detail—but also at the conventions of novelistic mimesis itself.—
Giles Harvey,
The New York Review of Books,
23 Apr. 2020
Cite this Entry
“Code word.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/code%20word. Accessed 19 Apr. 2025.
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