catchword

From catch +‎ word.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkat͡ʃwɜːd/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkæt͡ʃwɚd/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

catchword (plural catchwords)

2. (printing, historical) A word under the right-hand side of the last line on a book page that repeats the first word from the following page. Such words served as aids to the bookbinder (to check rapidly for correct placement of leaves) and were also viewed by some readers as aids to smooth reading.

   Synonym: guideword (catchword sense)

   Coordinate term: guideword (dictionary-related sense)

   Near-synonym: custos

3. (theater) The last word of a speech, serving as a cue for the next speaker.
4. A word or expression repeated until it becomes representative of a party, school, business, or point of view.

   Synonyms: watchword, byword

   • 1949, F. A. Hayek, “The Intellectuals and Socialism”, in University of Chicago Law Review, volume 16, number 3, Chicago: University of Chicago, →DOI, page 424:

     One could give a long list of such intellectual fashions and catchwords which in the course of two or three generations have in turn dominated the thinking of the intellectual.

   • 2014 November, Najwa al-Qattan, “When mothers ate their children”, in International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume 46, number 4, →JSTOR, pages 719–736:

     The war itself has several names, including "the famine war" (ḥarb al-majā'a) and seferberlik, a Turkish word, meaning "travel by land," that began its wartime career as a reference to "military conscription" but quickly became a catchword for all the calamities and suffering experienced by civilians.