as in dead metaphor
Related Words
Relevance
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of code word
These traffickers often use code words and emojis to avoid being detected by law enforcement or censored by platform guidelines.
—
Rachel Hale, USA Today, 3 Apr. 2025
Vejar suggests planning your code word in advance for dangerous situations.
—Sherri Gordon, Parents, 31 Mar. 2025
The first half hour is filled with the weirdly neutral techno jargon of soldiers jabbering code words into their headphones to what I (as a know-nothing) am tempted to call Mission Control.
—Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 28 Mar. 2025
Prudent families can also come up with a code word to use in an emergency which a scammer will never know.
—Steve Weisman, Forbes, 14 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for code word
Rachel Hale, USA Today, 3 Apr. 2025
Vejar suggests planning your code word in advance for dangerous situations.
—Sherri Gordon, Parents, 31 Mar. 2025
The first half hour is filled with the weirdly neutral techno jargon of soldiers jabbering code words into their headphones to what I (as a know-nothing) am tempted to call Mission Control.
—Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 28 Mar. 2025
Prudent families can also come up with a code word to use in an emergency which a scammer will never know.
—Steve Weisman, Forbes, 14 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for code word
Recent Examples of Synonyms for code word
Noun
-
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
-
This shift reminds us that dead metaphors aren’t always terminally dead.—
Rob Nixon,
Smithsonian,
23 Mar. 2018
Noun
-
The analogy is followed by another, comparing criminals to lions.—
Hannah Dreyfus,
AZCentral.com,
3 July 2025
-
Basketball is like jazz in so many ways that the analogy has become a cliché.—
Jay Caspian Kang,
New Yorker,
23 June 2025
Noun
-
What’s the difference between a simile and a metaphor?—
Vibhas Ratanjee,
Forbes.com,
30 May 2025
-
No metaphors or similes or hyperbolic language needed here – your kids are next.—
Rob Gagnon,
Hartford Courant,
25 Mar. 2025
Noun
-
No, but my aesthetic judgment had given over to its vibes, that contemporary euphemism for ultra-processed atmosphere.—
Ian Bogost,
The Atlantic,
4 July 2025
-
Children and grief: Stop using euphemisms about death Now, the former president, 82, faces his own cancer diagnosis.—
Savannah Kuchar,
USA Today,
21 May 2025
Noun
-
In thinking about faraway prospects such as Palencia, Hoyer used a different sports metaphor.—
Patrick Mooney,
New York Times,
8 July 2025
-
Ogwumike promised the on-stage conversations would be wide-ranging and not, to use a sports metaphor, filled with softball questions.—
David Bloom,
Forbes.com,
8 July 2025
Noun
-
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
-
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 18 Jul. 2025.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share