Mom's favorite byword is “You can get more flies with honey than with vinegar”.
nationally, Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive has become a byword for luxury retailing
Recent Examples on the WebThe Biden administration’s support of worker rights and union organizing has become a byword.—Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 13 Mar. 2024 But most of the women shunned their former friend, viewing his actions as uncouth in an era when discretion was the byword of elite society.—Meilan Solly, Smithsonian Magazine, 31 Jan. 2024 The Ukrainian suburb of Bucha has also become a byword for war crimes, with reports of indiscriminate shelling and executions highlighting the atrocities of Russian occupation.—Molly Stazicker, CNN, 7 Feb. 2024 As a result of heavy-handed and improvident state intervention in the economy for the better part of a century, Argentina has become a byword for economic decline.—The Editors, National Review, 23 Jan. 2024 The idea of evictions and lack of access to housing is particularly resonant, Mr. Doyle said, because of Ireland’s centuries under British rule, during which the callous absentee landlord became a byword for oppression.—Megan Specia, New York Times, 15 Jan. 2024 Russia has physically erased it from the face of the Earth and made its name a byword for destruction, for street battles of a ferocity hardly seen since World War II.—Haiane Avakian, The Atlantic, 27 Sep. 2023 How did a genre rooted in astonishment, weirdness, and wonder become a byword for the normative, the familiar, and the mundane?—Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 9 Nov. 2023 Because girl power always held out hope for a just world, a world where women and girls weren’t beholden to tired standards of femininity, and where feminism was more than a byword for lesbians.—Raven Smith, Vogue, 3 Aug. 2022
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'byword.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
First Known Use
before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Time Traveler
The first known use of byword was
before the 12th century
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