"watchword" is a correct and usable word in written English.
You can use it when referring to a word or phrase that inspires or sets an attitude or action. For example, "Justice and equality was the watchword for the protest."
Following the 2011 riots in our cities and suburbs, unity was the watchword to guard against further repeats.
Freedom was to be the new moral watchword – which, for the right, meant the freedom for some people to get as rich as they could.
Yet convergence has become the watchword, both in Britain and elsewhere.
Fifty years ago, safety was the watchword for pension funds, insurance companies and endowments; they bought the bonds of governments and blue-chip companies.
CAUTION seems the watchword among the institutional investors surveyed in our latest portfolio poll.
My faith is strong, blind, and without foundation.Scepticism was her watchword.
And caution is the watchword in foreign borrowing.
In September unemployment hit an all-time low of 7%, down from a peak of 27% in 1993 when the DLP was last in power".Change" (of leadership) was the DLP's campaign watchword.
Attended by members of the ruling Politburo, government ministers, provincial chiefs, military leaders and heads of banks and other big state-owned companies, secrecy is the watchword.
It is also the watchword of those who fear that the protectors will pursue the collective interest at untold cost to individual rights.
The message from London is now that the new Belfast administration must make its own luck: self-reliance is the watchword, with no special incentives to encourage foreign investment in Northern Ireland that Scotland would then demand.Despite the troubles, Northern Ireland has attracted investment in recent years.
