calling card
Americannoun
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Also called card, visiting card. a small card with the name and often the address of a person or of a couple, for presenting when making a business or social call, for enclosing in gifts, etc.
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Informal. any mark, sign, trace, characteristic, or the like by which someone or something can be recognized.
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Also called phone card. a prepaid card or charge card that can be used to make a telephone call at home or away from home.
noun
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012Etymology
Origin of calling card
An Americanism dating back to 1895–1900
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.
“It was a great calling card for an actor to have the possibility of showing two absolutely opposite facets almost at once,” Darín said.
From New York Times
The owner of a model village has revealed how Banksy used diversion tactics to leave a spray-paint calling card at the venue in secret.
From BBC
But what they are really interested in is the metric that has become Transfermarkt’s calling card, what it calls Market Value.
From New York Times
I’ll run through the rest of the laptop; the takeaway again is that reparability is the Framework’s only real calling card.
From The Verge
The title role is a calling card akin to Hamlet, and a chance for actors to spiral into an abyss of drunken sorrow.
From New York Times
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.
