idiomatic

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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.

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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.

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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.
 

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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.
 

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/cdɪəˈmætɪk/
by American Heritage

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