0 (a word or phrase that represents) the main ideas or principles directing the way that someone behaves or the way that something is done: --
The watchword was derided at the beginning of the contest as a piece of sentimentality.
Where the employees of an audit firm wish to join their client's payroll, proportionality should again be the watchword.
The means test became a sort of watchword.
Its three watchwords, no doubt honed by some spin bowler, are "modernise", "reform"and"pursue".
It is good enough for his watchword while he is here, for his epitaph when he is gone.
The watchwords of structural reform, by contrast, are 'efficiency' and 'responsiveness' - words that suggest the ability to rein in costs without reductions in the quality or quantity of medical services.
Globalisation has become the watchword of governments and policy-makers, across the world, being alternately blamed and celebrated, depending on what particular action (or outcome) is being justified.
Londe's watchword to "replace the observer" covered only half of the story.
