fighting word
Americannoun
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
We was fighting word counts, so a lot of my essay got chopped up.
From Salon • Nov. 6, 2022
The main target of its critique is also the principal object of its affection, which we might call — using a name that has lately become something of a fighting word — cinema.
From New York Times • Jul. 20, 2022
Then she turned the case over and spied a fighting word: Soul, short for SoulCycle, a popular chain of cycling studios in New York and Los Angeles.
From New York Times • Dec. 21, 2012
But when South Carolina rebels fired on Fort Sumter, secession became a fighting word in the North, and nothing more was heard of Tri-lnsula.
From Time Magazine Archive
Also, throughout the South, "clay-eater," has ever been a fighting word.
From Black Caesar's Clan : a Florida Mystery Story by Terhune, Albert Payson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
