idiomatic

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
His speech was apt to be oddly and uncouthly idiomatic, and even when classical in its form was emitted with a strange, rough depth of utterance, that came from recesses of the lungs which we Yankees seldom put to any use.

View all »
Definitions (8)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (5)

  1. adjective Peculiar to or characteristic of a given language.
  2. adjective Characterized by proficient use of idiomatic expressions: a foreigner who speaks idiomatic English.
  3. adjective Resembling or having the nature of an idiom.
2 more from this dictionary »

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • There are a couple of expressions where the were is idiomatic - as it were is the clearest case, as it allows no substitution of was.
  • It is nothing!Alcatraz: It's idiomatic, beeyotch!The Simpsons Christmas Stories (2005)Result-denoting -ing nominals, folk-etymologyBethlehem innkeeper Moe leading Herod and his soldiers to the stable to kill baby Bart-Jesus:Moe: The kid you're looking for is in there!
  • The latter ability was important, whether dealing with the general archetypical figures or the idiomatic entities that inhabited specific Locations. —  FSF - May2006
  • Unlike the idiomatic entities that populated the various Events, Situations, and Landscapes that filled the interior of the Commons, the pure entities' awareness was almost entirely limited to themselves. —  FSF - May2006
  • The secret of this appears to lie in sifting out what is most idiomatic or characteristic of a man, purging and depurating this of all that is uncharacteristic, and then presenting the former unmixed and free, the man of the man. —  Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I.
More examples »
 

Tags

idiomatic hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 98 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = French idiomatique = Spanish idiomático = Portuguese Italian idiomatico (cf. German idiomatisch = Danish Swedish idiomatisk), from New Latin idiomaticus, from Greek ἰδιωματικός, peculiar, characteristic, from ἰδίωμα(τ-), a peculiarity, idiom: see idiom.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/cdɪəˈmætɪk/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about once a year.

Recently looked up

trustworthy · bladed · electricity · yore · flagellate

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

nom nom nom · woobie · Der dicke Dachdecker deckte dir dein Dach, drum dank dem dicken Dachdecker, dass der dicke Dachdecker dir dein Dach deckte. · weitläufig · und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, so leben sie noch heute