Adverb
you don't have to record the professor's comments word for word in your notes
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Adjective
Doctors don’t treat patients by following FDA labels word-for-word and stopping there.—Payton Herres, STAT, 19 May 2026 But when significant chunks of someone's writing appears word-for-word without quotation marks, it is generally considered plagiarism, according to Edward Wasserman, a professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.—Bobby Allyn, NPR, 17 May 2026
Adverb
The finished product appeared to show Kerr reciting the song nearly word for word over the course of the season.—Paloma Chavez, PEOPLE, 16 May 2026 Not a word for word quote, so don’t quote Margaret.—Yvonne Villarreal, Los Angeles Times, 10 Apr. 2026 See All Example Sentences for word-for-word