catchphrase

A repeated expression, often originating in popular culture.

Noun

  1. A repeated expression, often originating in popular culture.
    • Frequently, catch phrases are not, in the grammarians' sense, phrases at all, but sentences. Catch phrases, like the closely linked proverbial sayings, are self-contained, as, obviously, clichés are too. Catch phrases...
    • For Tigger, he created a slight lisp and laugh, crediting his British wife with Tigger's "TTFN" catchprase - "ta-ta for now", itself coming from BBC radio comedy It's That Man Again. - 2005 May 14, “Disney's Tigger...
    • The former head of BBC comedy claims catchphrases are out of fashion. But as Corporal Jones might say, ‘Don’t panic!’ - 2018 September 18, Brian Logan, “Catchphrase comedy is dead. Am I bovvered?”, in The Guardian:
  2. A signature phrase of a particular person or group.
    • Instead, bro country songs string together a formulaic subset of tropes about beer sipping, truck driving, sunglasses wearing, unpaved roads, and tanned girls in shorts, typically building to a predictable catchphrase...

Origin

From catch + phrase, from the notion that the phrase will catch in the mind of the user.

Forms

catchphrases catch phrase catch-phrase

Synonyms

signature phrase catchword