as in dead metaphor
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Recent Examples of code word
As Jamie divulges the details of the enterprise, including the special code words staff must use in the presence of The Butcher, Cooper gets increasingly nervous.
—
Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 1 Aug. 2024
Kingsley suggests having a code word with your friends and family to verify their identity.
—Betty Lin-Fisher, USA TODAY, 4 June 2024
The posts are promptly posted and removed with code words and emojis used to market and sell illicit drugs.
—Nickolaus Hayes, New York Daily News, 16 June 2024
Whereas other sites and apps almost eliminated drug postings after scrutiny by law enforcement, dealers on Craigslist seemingly remained active using code words.
—Kevinisha Walker, Los Angeles Times, 8 June 2024
See all Example Sentences for code word 
Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 1 Aug. 2024
Kingsley suggests having a code word with your friends and family to verify their identity.
—Betty Lin-Fisher, USA TODAY, 4 June 2024
The posts are promptly posted and removed with code words and emojis used to market and sell illicit drugs.
—Nickolaus Hayes, New York Daily News, 16 June 2024
Whereas other sites and apps almost eliminated drug postings after scrutiny by law enforcement, dealers on Craigslist seemingly remained active using code words.
—Kevinisha Walker, Los Angeles Times, 8 June 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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Bednar likes to use an analogy involving fixing holes in a boat.—
Corey Masisak,
The Denver Post,
21 Jan. 2025
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Use metaphors, anecdotes and real-world analogies to give your story depth and grounding.—
Sherzod Odilov,
Forbes,
19 Jan. 2025
Noun
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This is what Thadeus loves: a test of his store of poetic similes, even if, these days, his poetry-writing is notional.—
Han Ong,
The New Yorker,
12 Jan. 2025
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The simile is novel and yet the sort of thing a young woman would think; there is assonance and consonance seesawing across the sentence, which is slow and gorgeous rather than quick and thrilling.—
Joanna Biggs,
Harper's Magazine,
2 Feb. 2024
Noun
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When Russia targets other European neighbors, though, the West resorts to its own euphemisms to avoid directly acknowledging what Putin is doing.—
Phillips Payson O’Brien,
The Atlantic,
13 Jan. 2025
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Even now, with no way to hide behind my usual euphemisms or analogies, emoting still feels at times too frank and candid.—
Hannah Seo,
New York Times,
7 Jan. 2025
Noun
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Balloons are a potent metaphor for the series, according to Latta.—
Esther Zuckerman,
Los Angeles Times,
24 Jan. 2025
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Perhaps, their lack of synchronization serves as a quiet metaphor for the division within our nation.—
Kristen Waggoner,
Newsweek,
21 Jan. 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
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 30 Jan. 2025.
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