mantra
Americannoun
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Hinduism. a word or formula, as from the Veda, chanted or sung as an incantation or prayer.
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an often repeated word, formula, or phrase, often a truism.
If I hear the “less is more” mantra one more time, I'll scream.
noun
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Hinduism any of those parts of the Vedic literature which consist of the metrical psalms of praise
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Hinduism Buddhism any sacred word or syllable used as an object of concentration and embodying some aspect of spiritual power
Other Word Forms
- mantric adjective
Etymology
Origin of mantra
Borrowed into English from Sanskrit around 1800–10
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.
The new mantra is “What is hot can get much hotter—if enough people will it to be thus on social media.”
From Barron's
There are certainly years when this hasn’t been the case, and I’m sure you’re familiar with the investment-industry legal mantra that “past performance is no guarantee of future results.”
From MarketWatch
On the first day of his current quest, it was just Poko and Jasmine and their three children, hanging out at the walkway after hanging signs that included a Rams mantra, “Earn the right.”
From Los Angeles Times
It was a list almost every South Floridian knew by heart and could recite like a mantra.
From Literature
"We have to have it," is the new mantra.
From BBC
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.
