Crossword clues for watchword
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Watchword \Watch"word`\, n.
A word given to sentinels, and to such as have occasion to visit the guards, used as a signal by which a friend is known from an enemy, or a person who has a right to pass the watch from one who has not; a countersign; a password.
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A sentiment or motto; esp., one used as a rallying cry or a signal for action.
Nor deal in watchwords overmuch.
--Tennyson.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
n. 1 a prearranged reply to the challenge of a sentry or a guard; a password or signal by which friends can be known from enemies 2 a word used as a motto, as expressive of a principle or rule of action; a maxim, byword 3 a rallying cry
WordNet
n. a slogan used to rally support for a cause; "a cry to arms"; "our watchword will be `democracy'" [syn: war cry, rallying cry, battle cry, cry]
a secret word or phrase known only to a restricted group; "he forgot the password" [syn: password, word, parole, countersign]
Usage examples of "watchword".
Not to allow themselves to be arrested, to keep their freedom for the combat--such was the watchword of the members of the Left.
I greatly fear lest this pretended justice prove the watchword for war and bloodshed.
Their watchword is that echo of fools, and laughing stock of the wise,--Liberty.
The populace of the Italian towns, ranged under party names, and ever obedient to the watchword and signals of their party, were easily moved to fall on the contrary faction.
But when the sentinel dies rather than pass a false watchword, suicide is sacrifice, death is victory, and God takes His martyr under the wings of His mercy.
The history of dogma was, as it were, shut out by the watchword of the immanent development of the spirit in Christianity.
He accepted a wooden square from the hands of a centurion and memorized the watchword cut into it.
Julius followed Brutus through the camp, stopping twice to give the watchword of the day to alert sentries.
My prayer for you is that you may receive from Christ not only the watchword of this nobler life, but also the power to fulfil it.
Better still than this, the novelist could take the watchword from the sociologist.
Dorsenne had heard that it was a watchword between Peppino Ardea and his friends to take lightly the disaster which came upon the Castagna family in its last and only scion.
I had heard that watchword more times than I could count when I was at Avalon.
Never may the steps of carnage Shake our land from shore to shore, But may mother, home and Heaven, Be our watchwords evermore.
From his peasant teachers he drew the watchwords Faith, Love, and Labour, and by their light he established that concord in his own life without which the concord of the universe remains impossible to realise.
O let them not bring about their damned designs that stand now at the entrance of the bottomless pit, expecting the watchword to open and let out those dreadful locusts and scorpions to reinvolve us in that pitchy cloud of infernal darkness, where we shall never more see the sun of Thy truth again, never hope for the cheerful dawn, never more hear the bird of morning sing.