word for word
- in exactly the same words; verbatim.
- one word at a time, without regard for the sense of the whole: She translated the book word for word.
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Origin of word for word
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for word for word
Contemporary Examples
Conor has described, all but word-for-word, the position of the evangelical “post-culture warrior.”
Historical Examples
"Women and children starboard," came like a near, word-for-word echo.
AtlantisGerhart Hauptmann
Full hieroglyphic text, interlinear transliteration, word-for-word translation, smooth translation.
But the chief instrument of her vindication is the word-for-word record of her trial at Rouen in 1431.
How France Built Her CathedralsElizabeth Boyle O'Reilly
The impossibility of such a thing as a word-for-word bringing over from one language into another.
Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 1 of 2)B. H. Roberts
Idioms and Phrases with word for word
word for word
Exactly as written or spoken, as in That was the forecast, word for word. Chaucer used this idiom in the late 1300s.
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The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.