“This is a house of elected representatives!” he thundered. “No one will use this expression from now on!”

He was wrong, of course. It didn’t take long at all on Monday for someone to push the issue: Marriyum Aurangzeb, an opposition lawmaker, was soon reprimanded by Mr. Suri for continuing to describe Mr. Khan as “selected.” Afterward, she took a different tack, referring to the prime minister as “handpicked.”

Whether they are defying the order, digging into the thesaurus, or defending the ban as proper, lawmakers are now making the order itself the focus of debate.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, is questioning whether it is possible for one official to ban words in Parliament at all. Mr. Zardari is the lawmaker most widely credited with first using the phrase to describe Mr. Khan last year, and it has picked up resonance as Mr. Khan and his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or P.T.I., have struggled.

“Because of the prime minister’s ego, you have banned this word,” Mr. Zardari said on Monday, calling the move censorship. “What kind of freedom is this that members of National Assembly cannot express themselves on the floor of the house?”