coin a phrase

coin a phrase

To create a new expression. Don't try to coin a phrase, just write a straightforward headline.
See also: coin, phrase
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

coin a phrase

Fig. to create a new expression that is worthy of being remembered and repeated. (Often jocular.) He is "worth his weight in feathers," to coin a phrase.
See also: coin, phrase
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

coin a phrase, to

To fashion an expression. This term, dating from the 1940s, is often used ironically to apologize for using a cliché, as in “He acts like the cock of the walk, to coin a phrase.” Of course it can also be used straightforwardly and refer to inventing an expression, a usage dating from the late 1500s.
See also: coin
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
See also:
  • phrase
  • coin a phrase, to
  • (as) sure as eggs (is eggs)
  • a penny for them
  • pass current
  • be twiddling (one's) thumbs
  • be twiddling your thumbs
  • 57
  • and the rest
  • and how
References in periodicals archive
To coin a phrase used by a popular satirical journal: "We should be told"
AGENDA: We should be told
Money makes the art world go round (to coin a phrase), and a semi-ironic clinking-clanking will surely issue from the Salzburger Kunstverein's galleries this summer.
INTERNATIONAL SHORTS PREVIEW
And she raised a laugh when she pinched her husband's famous slogan, saying: "To coin a phrase we need education, education, education.
Cherie does a Hillary
Looking at these figures, you wonder not why there has been so much political "malaise" (to coin a phrase) since 1973, but why there hasn't been a revolution.
Dollars and Dreams: the Changing American Income Distribution