shibboleth

1. 1.

   a favorite saying of a sect or political group

   Synonymsmottoslogancatchword

   Broadersaying

   Narrowercatchphrasemantrawar cry
2. 2.

   a manner of speaking that is distinctive of a particular group of people

   Broadermanner of speaking

Other forms of shibboleth

plural

shibboleths·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about shibboleth

What does shibboleth mean?

shibboleth means "a favorite saying of a sect or political group". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in shibboleth?

shibboleth has 3 syllables: shib-bo-leth. The stress falls on "shib". In IPA it is /ˈʃɪbəˌlɛθ/.

What is another word for shibboleth?

Close synonyms include motto, slogan, catchword. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is shibboleth a common word?

shibboleth is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with shibboleth?

1 word rhymes with shibboleth. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.