how to temporarily highlight/unhighlight a word under cursor?

[Leo.Hou]

Hi all,

I am happy with the M-x highligh-phrase command except I need to
manually input the complete word every time.

I wonder if it is possible to create a macro or function in the .emacs
file and assign a shortcut to it to automatically highlight the
current word under cursor to the default "hi-yellow" color.

Similarly I hope to have a key to unhighlight it.

Any tip will be great.

Thanks

Leo