peculiar

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_Style_ may be defined as the peculiar manner in which a man expresses his conceptions through the medium of language.

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Definitions (25)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (5)

  1. adjective Unusual or eccentric; odd.
  2. adjective Distinct from all others. See Synonyms at strange.
  3. adjective Belonging distinctively or primarily to one person, group, or kind; special or unique: rights peculiar to the rich; a species peculiar to this area.

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Examples (50)

  • Heat then may be defined as a peculiar motion, probably a vibration of the corpuscles of bodies tending to separate them. —  Aether and Gravitation
  • It is an expression peculiar, I think, to the hunters of the "Far West,"--those men who dwell amidst dangers in the wild regions of the great prairies. —  The Young Voyageurs Boy Hunters in the North
  • I grant you he had his bad days when he was referred to as my "idiot son," but even then he was only just "peculiar"--a world of difference One job we had was termed "lodgers" and consisted of meeting the "sitting" cases from an ambulance train, taking them to the different hospitals for the night, and then back to the quay early next morning in time to catch the hospital ship to England. —  Fanny Goes to War
  • If we look for the peculiar, the little, the objectionable, these we shall find; but back of all this, all that is most apparent on the exterior, in the depths of each and every human soul, is the good, the true, the brave, the loving, the divine, the God-like, that that never changes, the very God Himself that at some time or another will show forth His full likeness And still another law of life is that others usually manifest to us that which our own natures, or, in other words, our own thoughts and emotions, call forth. —  What All The World's A-Seeking The Vital Law of True Life, True Greatness Power and Happiness
  • She is exasperated that people call her peculiar, but confesses that she loves admiration; she can fascinate and charm company if she tries; imagines an admiration for Messalina. —  Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

unusual ·  curious ·  spiritual ·  queer
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English peculier, personal, from Latin pecūliāris, from pecūlium, private property; see peku- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Of. peculier = Spanish Pg.peculiar=It.pcculiare, from Latinpeculiaris, pertaining to private property, one′s own, proper, special, peculiar, from peculium, property in cattle, hence property in general: see peculium.
 

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/pəˈkjuljər/
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