The word "byword" is correct and usable in written English.
It is used to describe something that is widely known or well-recognized. For example: "The prominent company's excellent customer service is a byword in the industry."
"Vorsprung durch Technik" became a motto for a nation that was putting the past behind it and restyling itself as a byword for quality, efficiency, progress and technology.
Creativity is now a byword for ideas refracted in the lens of ironic self-reference.
Years ago, the secret got out and Nixon became kind of a byword for behind-the-scenes vocal stand-ins, of the type that is used less today.
(2008), Quentin Tarantino described how in the 1980s Australian cinema was a byword for exciting indie movies.
A noble dish that once graced the banquet tables of the imperial Mughal court, rich with cream and nuts and heavily scented with expensive spice, has become a byword for bland, a "starter" curry, beloved of children and others with unadventurous tastes.
Qatar has become a byword for modern slavery, says Frances O'Grady, general secretary for Trades Union Congress: "UCL can't just wash its hands because the workers aren't directly employed by them".
With 40 million viewers in the Arab world, al-Jazeera has become a byword for independent reporting.
Jimi Petros survived perhaps the most worst shipwreck of them all, the night in October last year when 366 migrants died off Lampedusa, the tiny Mediterranean island that has become a miserable byword for transitory migrants.
Thanks to allegations about the Unite union's activities in an apparently moribund local Labour party, Falkirk recently became a byword for Labour's forlorn position in Scotland.
Garner's last words, "I can't breathe", caught on camera after Pantaleo held him in a chokehold, became the byword for racial injustices in the US.
Sweden, a frequently-used but frequently misleading byword for a social democratic nirvana, began experimenting with publicly funded "independent" schools over 20 years ago.
