(n.) A common saying; a proverb; a saying that has a general currency.
(n.) The object of a contemptuous saying.
Example Sentences:
(1) The District became a byword for crime and drug abuse, while its “mayor for life” lived high on the hog and lurched cheerfully from one scandal to the next.
(2) The previous management was a byword for incompetence and the current incumbents are no better.
(3) It will not rest until "statutory" is a byword for "doesn't work".
(4) BitTorrent technology may be forever be a byword for online piracy in many quarters of the creative industries, but BitTorrent the company would rather be seen as a powerful legal tool for digital marketing.
(5) For 15 years, Matthew Shepard’s unspeakably brutal murder on a lonely prairie in Wyoming has been a byword for the very worst of American anti-gay bigotry and a rallying cry for a more tolerant, more inclusive society.
(6) But what they hanker for is a left that treats Israel the way it treats any other country with such a record – as a flawed society, but not one that is a byword for evil, that is deemed a “disease” (as it was by a caller to a 2010 show on Press TV , the Iranian state broadcaster, without objection from the host, Jeremy Corbyn), whose very right to exist is held to be conditional on good behaviour, a standard not applied to any other nation on Earth.
(7) His name is a byword to all students of public health and is familiar to readers of World Health Forum from our fortieth anniversary article about the early days of WHO (1) and the reminiscences of Szeming Sze (2).
(8) The film could be said to mark the moment when the favela – previously a byword for criminality, sickness and moral depravity – started to become “chic”.
(9) Bisexual has almost become a byword for anything goes, and more often than not bisexuals are thought of as attention-seeking.
(10) There again, there are plenty of people who work in this part of the economy and see it as a byword for autonomy.
(11) This is Stokes Croft, the gloriously bohemian corner of Bristol that has become a byword for the fight against the so-called "Big Four": Asda, Sainsbury's, Morrisons – and, of course, Tesco.
(12) The boy from Stepney not only survived but thrived, helping to lead the dramatic renaissance of a local education system that at the time had become a byword for failure but which has now become a beacon for the possibilities of public service reform, boasting some of Britain's highest achieving state secondary schools.
(13) Diepsloot has become a byword for criminal gangs, vigilante mob justice and xenophobic violence.
(14) The Mid Staffs care scandal, named after the NHS trust that runs the hospital, has prompted a series of official inquiries – the biggest of which reports on Wednesday – and has become a byword for the NHS at its very worst.
(15) Yet though the imposing high-rises became a byword for violence, alienation and crime, they will be missed by the many artists, writers and filmmakers who made it the subject of their work.
(16) Kobani was the Kurdish Stalingrad, and its defence became a byword for heroism.
(17) The town’s successful defence became a byword for heroism.
(18) The basic story is simple: people (and companies) fleeing London contribute to double-digit house-price inflation, rents soar and the character of renowned areas of the city – particularly St Paul’s, the byword for Bristol’s black community where Rees spent some of his childhood – is said to be under real threat.
(19) As fans held their breath, the Arrested Development movie became a byword for delayed gratification.
(20) The fact that this great stately edifice was constructed on Orkney, an island that has become a byword for remoteness, makes the site's discovery all the more remarkable.
Phrase
Definition:
(n.) A brief expression, sometimes a single word, but usually two or more words forming an expression by themselves, or being a portion of a sentence; as, an adverbial phrase.
(n.) A short, pithy expression; especially, one which is often employed; a peculiar or idiomatic turn of speech; as, to err is human.
(n.) A mode or form of speech; the manner or style in which any one expreses himself; diction; expression.
(n.) A short clause or portion of a period.
(v. t.) To express in words, or in peculiar words; to call; to style.
(v. i.) To use proper or fine phrases.
(v. i.) To group notes into phrases; as, he phrases well. See Phrase, n., 4.
Example Sentences:
(1) But in 2017, to borrow another phrase from across the pond, there simply is no alternative.
(2) I never accuse a student of plagiarizing unless I have proof, almost always in the form of sources easily found by Googling a few choice phrases.
(3) It's that he habitually abuses his position by lobbying ministers at all; I've heard from former ministers who were astonished by the speed with which their first missive from Charles arrived, opening with the phrase: "It really is appalling".
(4) The phrase “self-inflicted blow” was one he used repeatedly, along with the word “glib” – applied to his Vote Leave opponents.
(5) On Thursday, Dutton had scaled his language back, instead using a phrase to describe Labor’s policy borrowed from former prime minister, Tony Abbott.
(6) At a dinner party, say, if ever you hear a person speak of a school for Islamic children, or Catholic children (you can read such phrases daily in newspapers), pounce: "How dare you?
(7) The #putyourwalletsout phrase was coined by Sydney-based Twitter user Steve Lopez, who accompanied it with a photo of his wallet.
(8) He admitted that he had “no reason” to fire the shots that killed Steenkamp, as Nel told him: “Your version is so improbable, that nobody would ever think it’s reasonably, possibly true, it’s so impossible … Your version is a lie.” Nel said the phrase “I love you” appeared only twice in WhatsApp messages from Steenkamp and, on both occasions, they were written to her mother: “Never to you and you never to her.” Day 20: live coverage as it happened.
(9) Von Trier, who took a " vow of silence " after being banned from the Cannes film festival in 2011 after joking about Nazism during a press conference for Melancholia, arrived at Nymphomaniac's photocall wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase "Persona Non Grata"; true to his word, he failed to attend the subsequent press conference where his actors and producer talked about the film.
(10) (now the phrase "reverse engineer" has me thinking).
(11) In it he translated Trump’s coarse ramblings into charming straight talk and came up with the phrase “truthful hyperbole”, which captures brilliantly an approach to business and politics in which everything is the greatest, the most beautiful.
(12) To complement these results a perception test was carried out in which 29 native speakers identified a randomised sequence of 220 stimuli from tape as one of the phrases 'Diese Gruppe kann ich nicht leid(e)n (leit(e)n)'.
(13) Peskov has refused to deny the phrase, saying only that Ponomaryov's publicising of a private conversation was "not manly".
(14) One of my technologists has a phrase: ‘internet of other people’s things,’” Tien said.
(15) The phrase “currency war” speaks to a seemingly phoney battle between the world’s major trading powers over the price of exports.
(16) Thereafter they both got so angry with one another they started adopting each other's pet phrases – "I won't be lectured to by..." – and there was the unnerving possibility they might just morph into a single, spluttering entity.
(17) Later that year, speaking at Sinn Féin's annual conference, I used the phrase "the Armalite and the ballot box" to sum up the new duel strategy of engaging in armed struggle and simultaneously contesting elections.
(18) Mohan also said it amounted to an "innocuous British institution", a phrase that inadvertently emphasised its anachronistic nature.
(19) The phrase "Frankenfood" entered tabloid English at the turn of the last century when protesters, backed by the green movement, trashed GM crops wearing white overalls and face masks as an emotive PR tactic.
(20) The phrase "Defender of the Faith," which is usually included in the King's titles, appears neither in the instrument of abdication nor in the bill.