as in dead metaphor
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Recent Examples of code word
The number started out as a code word used by several stony Marin County high-school students trying to skirt police, parents and teachers.
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Brad Branan, Sacramento Bee, 21 Feb. 2024
Apple—that was the code word the Commander himself had chosen.
—Hazlitt, 24 Jan. 2024
The watermelon emoji also serves a particular purpose for social media users as supporters of the Palestinian cause turn to code words, symbols and special spellings, arguing that these are necessary to avoid their posts being suppressed by tech companies.
—Miriam Berger, Washington Post, 16 Nov. 2023
Wayne Chan, a research computer analyst at the University of Manitoba in Canada, determined the code words would have been used to transmit local weather via telegraph.
—Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Jan. 2024
See all Example Sentences for code word 
Brad Branan, Sacramento Bee, 21 Feb. 2024
Apple—that was the code word the Commander himself had chosen.
—Hazlitt, 24 Jan. 2024
The watermelon emoji also serves a particular purpose for social media users as supporters of the Palestinian cause turn to code words, symbols and special spellings, arguing that these are necessary to avoid their posts being suppressed by tech companies.
—Miriam Berger, Washington Post, 16 Nov. 2023
Wayne Chan, a research computer analyst at the University of Manitoba in Canada, determined the code words would have been used to transmit local weather via telegraph.
—Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Jan. 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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So there's no doubt that there is sort of an arms race or a Cold War, like, pick your analogy.Taylor Wilson, USA TODAY, 4 Nov. 2024
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But the analogy to the entertainment industry breaks apart on the matter of what the fans are paying for.Geoff Colvin, Fortune, 2 Nov. 2024
Noun
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Later, when asked about his evolution as a coach, Harbaugh described himself as open to change and used a mall-entrance simile to make his point.Dylan Hernández, Los Angeles Times, 4 Sep. 2024
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As the simile suggests, the pen could be used as a weapon, producing militant verses that would advance the nationalist cause.Maggie Doherty, The New Yorker, 2 Sep. 2024
Noun
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The media has deployed every euphemism imaginable to describe the former president’s public usage of bad words like ****, **** and ****.Lorraine Ali, Los Angeles Times, 25 Oct. 2024
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But the rest has been, in the British political euphemism of the moment, missteps.Sam Knight, The New Yorker, 12 Oct. 2024
Noun
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Every generation of kids deserves a live-action series in which awkward magical powers become the obvious metaphor for puberty, and, thankfully, Waverly Place is once again stepping in to fill that void.Savannah Salazar, Vulture, 2 Nov. 2024
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This concept can be beautifully illustrated by thinking of a jazz combo as a metaphor for work-life harmony.Brian Bartes, Forbes, 1 Nov. 2024
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
Thesaurus Entries Near code word
Cite this Entry
“Code word.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/code%20word. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.
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