in so many words

1. In those precise words; also, plainly, directly. For example, He didn't tell me in so many words, but I understood that he planned to apply, or, as Charles Dickens put it in Sketches by “Boz” (1836): “That the Lord Mayor had threatened in so many words to pull down the London Bridge.” [Late 1600s]

Example Sentences

And while most have the best intentions, with no guidance for how to approach this sensitive topic, the resulting ads can swing from describing how the prospective adoptive parents met to essentially—though not in so many words—saying “Pregnant? We want to buy your baby.”

From Slate

Allegedly, Romanians saw an American oil tycoon enjoying easy access to nice cars and other possessions and thought, in so many words, "Why can't that be me?"

From Salon

Well, said the judge in so many words, now let politicians suck up their own medicine.

From BBC

It said, in so many words, they had been wrongly accused of being “kingpins” and did not deserve their 20-year sentences.

From Los Angeles Times

One's immediate reaction is entirely reasonable: he blurts out in so many words that he doesn’t know what “pansexual” means.

From Salon