What’s the origin of the phrase ‘Word for word’?
The ‘close study’ meaning of the expression does back to at least 1385 when Chaucer used it in The Legend of Dido, a poem from Legend of Good Women:
I could folwe [follow] word for word Virgile.
Meaning
Word for word
The meaning of the phrase
A precise following of another's words, that is, verbatim, either in spoken repetition of those words or in a close study of a text.
