(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.
Proverbial
Definition:
(a.) Mentioned or comprised in a proverb; used as a proverb; hence, commonly known; as, a proverbial expression; his meanness was proverbial.
(a.) Of or pertaining to proverbs; resembling a proverb.
Example Sentences:
(1) Even if it were true that the rich are hard working, this wouldn't distinguish them from most people who lack the proverbial pot to micturate in.
(2) The next thing you know, the TV broadcast clicked off and that was that.” Protest singers have come and gone through the decades – mostly notably Dylan himself, whose devotion to radical causes didn’t last much longer than the proverbial five minutes – but Baez has remained true to her beliefs.
(3) Brilliant young author rails against the "phony" nature of modern life but, unlike many before him, does not eventually sell out and conform but puts his money where his mouth is and moves out to the proverbial shack in the woods to pursue his vision.
(4) Motherhood is not only the proverbial hardest job you'll ever love, as the slogan goes – it is also the hardest job you'll ever do.
(5) As half an hour of vox-poppery proves, this is also a place where the supposedly rarefied issue of electoral reform may actually come up on the proverbial doorstep.
(6) I did.” He’s done you up like a … well, a proverbial kipper.
(7) "One night, we were playing in this place outside Rockville and the proverbial fat man with a cigar came and said, 'Do you want to make a record?'"
(8) The relegation fears of the travelling support no doubt intensified by defeat in a proverbial six-pointer.
(9) SOAEs are one of the proverbial key holes through which we can have a glimpse of what is happening into the cochlea.
(10) Legally Blonde Beneath its fluffy and frivolous exterior, Legally Blonde has feminism coming out the proverbial.
(11) Capable committed surgeons undertaking difficult-to-hopeless cases no one else would touch with the proverbial bargepole would come out resembling barbarous maniacs.
(12) For centuries, the European brown bear has been pushed by deforestation into increasingly remote areas, to do what a bear proverbially does in woods.
(13) Already irritated with Speaker John Bercow for being long-winded, unctuous and perceptibly anti-Conservative in the House of Commons, the idea that his Labour-supporting wife would go on the programme's Channel 5 reincarnation had been a red rag to the proverbial.
(14) The "tofu and yoga health plan" that's been my default for so long has its merits, but it will it be of little use the day one is run over by the proverbial bus.
(15) We’d acknowledge that what we see on the proverbial “street” is just a phantasm, just a trick of the eye.
(16) "Sir Martin, like all of us, is not immune from being hit by the proverbial bus," he said, in a letter to shareholders.
(17) Norway Aligned to the Viking Empire bloc Alexander Rybak's song Fairytale is the bookies' favourite partly because Alexander is such a poppet and also because his song is as nelly as the proverbial elephant.
(18) Was this now to be the proverbial duck shoot for City?
(19) In order for me to put my proverbial money where my mouth is, Compassion in World Farming has just launched our Good Pig award programme in China.
(20) How Messrs Samaras, Rajoy etc must wish that they could find such riches down the side of the proverbial sofa.