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An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).
Idiom. An idiom is a phrase or expression that usually presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase. Some phrases which become figurative idioms, however, do retain the phrase's literal meaning. Categorized as formulaic language, an idiom's figurative meaning is different from the literal meaning. [ 1]
An idiom is a phrase whose meaning could not be readily deduced from the meaning of its individual words. The word comes from the Greek ἰδίωμα (idioma) – the distinctive style of a particular person. The traditional example is "kick the bucket" which is normally understood to mean dying. The extent to which a phrase is thought ...
Meaning. John Moore-Brabazon, 1st Baron Brabazon of Tara took a piglet with him on board an aeroplane in 1909. "When pigs fly" is an adynaton, a way of saying that something will never happen. The phrase is often used for humorous effect, to scoff at over-ambition. There are numerous variations on the theme; when an individual with a reputation ...
Its most common use is in response to an affirmative statement, for example "I saw Mrs. Smith exercising, I swear!" to which the response given would be something like, "Yeah right, and cows fly". Other variations slightly fallen into disuse include cuando las ranas crien pelo ("when frogs grow hair") and cuando San Juan agache el dedo ("when ...
Between Scylla and Charybdis. Being between Scylla and Charybdis is an idiom deriving from Greek mythology, which has been associated with the proverbial advice "to choose the lesser of two evils". [1] Several other idioms such as "on the horns of a dilemma", "between the devil and the deep blue sea", and "between a rock and a hard place ...
Idiom (language structure) Idiom, also called idiomaticness or idiomaticity, is the syntactical, grammatical, or structural form peculiar to a language. [ 1] Idiom is the realized structure of a language, as opposed to possible but unrealized structures that could have developed to serve the same semantic functions but did not.
The following is a list of phrases from sports that have become idioms (slang or otherwise) in English. They have evolved usages and meanings independent of sports and are often used by those with little knowledge of these games. The sport from which each phrase originates has been included immediately after the phrase.