word of mouth
26
2.6
- noun
- /wɜrd əv maʊθ/
:
de boca en boca
- The restaurant's popularity grew rapidly thanks to word of mouth from satisfied customers.
- word of mouth spreads
- word of mouth from customers
- traveled by word of mouth
But because I don't advertise anywhere, it's all word of mouth, one person to another.
- But because I don't advertise anywhere, it's all word of mouth, one person to another.
- You have word of mouth working against you.
- And it just kept growing via word of mouth and we've never really done the advertising.
- And so our, our method has really been word of mouth and we really ask people to help us.
- But there's also, which I think is a little more familiar to this world, the word of mouth effect.
- I'm just getting into this how podcasts get found and shared, you know, word of mouth and I don't know who knows?
- And when you do these things, what will happen is word of mouth really begins to spread in your clients.
- And it was only through word of mouth that they were able to pass this message on.
- I believe that all influence and all marketing happens due to word of mouth.
- To me, the best marketing, I suppose, is the product itself and then word of mouth.
- Maybe you shop based on word of mouth or brand name rather than like looking at reviews.
- And it right now I believe it's mostly word of mouth there.
Examples
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The largest rate of success came via word of mouth from participants to friends.
Academic text (2005) -
And it was only through word of mouth that they were able to pass this message on.
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The key to our growth was word of mouth of our good work.
-
So everything was spread word of mouth.
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We were hoping word of mouth would help us out a lot.
-
Apparently, homeowners have heard about it by word of mouth and want to try it.
Academic text (2000) -
Before her, we relied upon word of mouth, and it limited our effectiveness.
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It's spread almost entirely through word of mouth, virally across teachers, parents, people involved in education.
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It's really a community that goes by word of mouth, and everyone trusts you even if they haven't met you.
Academic text (2009) -
" We don't do any advertising and sell strictly by word of mouth, and we regularly sell out.
Academic text (1997)
Synonyms
27
3.5
Rumor spread by people talking rather than by officials
An informal way people pass news and rumors by talking
Antonyms
How Widespread
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'spreading information by spoken communication' is directly derivable from combining 'word' (spoken/written element) with 'mouth' (the organ of speech) — essentially words passed by mouth — so a learner who knows the constituents can infer the sense. This construction is cross-linguistically common (e.g. Spanish 'boca a boca', French 'bouche-à-oreille'), reinforcing its transparency for B1 learners.
Etymology
Word of mouth comes from the simple image of a word moving from one person's mouth to another as people tell each other things. That's why it means 'information or recommendations spread by informal talk'.