as in dead metaphor
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Recent Examples of code word
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
Rana recommends coming up with a secret code word to use with your family.
—Audrey Nguyen, NPR, 24 Dec. 2024
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
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
Rana recommends coming up with a secret code word to use with your family.
—Audrey Nguyen, NPR, 24 Dec. 2024
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
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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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When these optimization processes lead to outcomes that disregard human values or well-being in subtle yet significant ways, the analogy to psychopathic tendencies becomes less of a hyperbolic statement and more of a cautionary observation.—
Cornelia C. Walther,
Forbes.com,
24 May 2025
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So Penders goes for the colorful analogy, me for the random Hamlet references.—
Dom Amore,
Hartford Courant,
19 May 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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With his vocabulary and euphemisms clearly formed by his affinity for fantasy fiction and medieval tales of knights and kings, Connor strikes an indelible impression on the show.—
Joe Reid,
Vulture,
10 May 2025
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The claim that euphemisms for death are somehow unique to Vietnamese culture is absurd in the extreme.—
Andrea Long Chu,
Vulture,
6 May 2025
Noun
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In an era of horror mired in pathos and trauma metaphors, there’s a refreshing simplicity to movies that are just about finding new ways to turn people into goop.—
Louis Peitzman,
Vulture,
22 May 2025
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The prison was both a historical set piece and a metaphor — symbolizing his emotional confinement.—
Victoria Bousis,
Rolling Stone,
22 May 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 3 Jun. 2025.
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