1
general::
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]
American Heritage Idioms
2
general::
Phrase(s): in so many words
Fig. exactly; explicitly; in plain, clear language. • I told her in so many words to leave me alone. • He said yes, but not in so many words.
McGrawhill's American Idioms And Phrasal Verbs