in so many words

Idioms  

1. In those precise words; also, plainly, directly. For example, He didn't tell me in so many words, but I understood that he planned to apply, or, as Charles Dickens put it in Sketches by “Boz” (1836): “That the Lord Mayor had threatened in so many words to pull down the London Bridge.” [Late 1600s]

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

in so many words

It said, in so many words, they had been wrongly accused of being “kingpins” and did not deserve their 20-year sentences.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 8, 2024

One's immediate reaction is entirely reasonable: he blurts out in so many words that he doesn’t know what “pansexual” means.

From Salon ● Jul. 25, 2024

His very brief “Why Doug?” page on his website says this in so many words.

From Slate ● Aug. 23, 2023

Curley was saying, in so many words, that the justices will not be handing down any more decisions until then, in a term in which they have so far decided cases at a glacial pace.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 27, 2023

A writer might think that it’s unsubtle to announce the topic in so many words, as in “This paper is about hamsters.”

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker