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

“And if they don’t always say it in so many words, they do it by appearing on TV or extending interviews to journalists, stridently projecting their own confidence in what will happen next. And surely, these people would never have the nerve to tell you what’s happening next, if they were so horribly wrong on what happened last, right? Yet I simply don’t recall too many people agreeing with me back then.”

From Literature

“And I don’t think I’ve ever said this in so many words, but I did think to myself that once Hamilton was dead, she had him to herself. Nobody would get to come between her and him ever again.”

From Slate

And while most have the best intentions, with no guidance for how to approach this sensitive topic, the resulting ads can swing from describing how the prospective adoptive parents met to essentially—though not in so many words—saying “Pregnant? We want to buy your baby.”

From Slate

Allegedly, Romanians saw an American oil tycoon enjoying easy access to nice cars and other possessions and thought, in so many words, "Why can't that be me?"

From Salon

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