Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
rallying cry
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ It has been a radical rallying cry ever since Lenin laid it down as doctrine.
▪ Newspapers sometimes appeared to be providing the rallying cry for future demonstration.
▪ Public order is an election rallying cry and fear of crime can influence practice as well as policy.
▪ Self-denial and self-help, however, would make a poor rallying cry for the hustings.
▪ That was the rallying cry of Nelson Mandela's finely crafted speech.
▪ This rhetoric offers both a posthoc justification for the changes, and a rallying cry for implementation.
WordNet
rallying cry
n. a slogan used to rally support for a cause; "a cry to arms"; "our watchword will be `democracy'" [syn: war cry, battle cry, cry, watchword]
a yell intended to rally a group of soldiers in battle [syn: war cry, war whoop, battle cry]
Usage examples of "rallying cry".
From then on, he could always use Ix as a rallying cry for even more major offensives, as he had done with Poritrin.
Dissidents would seize upon Justin's cause as a rallying cry, whether we willed it or no.