as in code word
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Recent Examples of dead metaphor
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
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
Recent Examples of Synonyms for dead metaphor
Noun
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That number will be part of a lengthy play-call, with other numbers, letters and code words that say everything McDaniels wants from the next play.—
Andrew Callahan,
Boston Herald,
10 Jan. 2026
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This pressure included code words for acts Lovell wanted Jane Doe to perform.—
S.E. Jenkins,
CBS News,
11 Dec. 2025
Noun
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The gloves are off, the language is blunter, and the patience for euphemism is gone.—
Seth Abramovitch,
HollywoodReporter,
6 Feb. 2026
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Everything else is a euphemism for old fashioned domination that the region has spent generations trying to escape.—
Boris Muñoz,
Time,
12 Jan. 2026
Noun
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Baseball has a lot of good analogies for fatherhood, even if most of them break down rather quickly.—
Caleb Harris,
Austin American Statesman,
4 Feb. 2026
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That’s the American analogy, where the traditional governing elite of one of the great parties of much of the country committed itself to something not just in the defense of slavery, but to slavery-plus, fortified and amplified by treason.—
David Frum,
The Atlantic,
28 Jan. 2026
Noun
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Postnature, then, demands a subjectivity that is plural and decenters the human; a postnatural ethics seeks to blur the boundaries between human and nature, crafting new metaphors for the permeability and porousness of life-forms.—
Catherine Taft,
Artforum,
1 Feb. 2026
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Though the rope suggests tidy metaphors of unity, coherence, and formal integrity, a playful but insistent messiness effloresces in Simms’s entanglements, throwing any seeming wholeness into question.—
Richard Brody,
New Yorker,
30 Jan. 2026
Noun
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Consider, for instance, the use of rhetorical figures such as metaphor or simile.—
Nino Letteriello,
Forbes.com,
22 Aug. 2025
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Want to read whole stanzas, even poems, constructed simile by simile?—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
2 June 2025
Cite this Entry
“Dead metaphor.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dead%20metaphor. Accessed 8 Feb. 2026.
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