catchword

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English

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Catchword (Morning) from Robinson Crusoe, first edition, p. 134.

Etymology

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From catch +‎ word.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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catchword (plural catchwords)

  1. (printing, historical) A word under the right-hand side of the last line on a book page that repeats the first word on the following page.
  2. (theater) The last word of a speech, serving as a cue for the next speaker.
  3. A word or expression repeated until it becomes representative of a party, school, business, or point of view.
    • 2014 November, Najwa al-Qattan, “When mothers ate their children”, in International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume 46, number 4, →JSTOR, pages 719–736:
      The war itself has several names, including "the famine war" (ḥarb al-majā'a) and seferberlik, a Turkish word, meaning "travel by land," that began its wartime career as a reference to "military conscription" but quickly became a catchword for all the calamities and suffering experienced by civilians.

Synonyms

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Translations

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