Idiom
An
idiom is an expression (i.e.
term or
phrase) whose
meaning cannot be deduced from the literal
definitions and the arrangement of its parts, but refers instead to a
figurative meaning that is known only through conventional use. In
linguistics, idioms are widely assumed to be
figures of speech that contradict the
principle of compositionality. Though, recently, some debate has arisen on this subject.
In the
English expression
to kick the bucket, a listener knowing only the meaning of
kick and
bucket would be unable to deduce the expression's actual meaning, which is
to die. Although
kick the bucket can refer literally to the act of striking a bucket with a foot, native speakers rarely use it that way.
Idioms hence tend to confuse those not already familiar with them; students of a new language must learn its idiomatic expressions the way they learn its other vocabulary. In fact many
natural language words have
idiomatic origins, but have been sufficiently assimilated so that their figurative senses have been lost.
Idioms are, in essence, often
colloquial metaphors â€" terms which require some foundational knowledge, information, or experience, to use only within a
culture where parties must have common reference. As cultures are typically localized, idioms are more often not useful for communication outside of that local context. However some idioms can be more
universally used than others, and they can be easily translated, or their
metaphorical meaning can be more easily deduced.
The most common idioms can have deep roots, traceable across many
languages. To have
blood on one's hands is a familiar example, whose meaning is obvious. Many have
translations in other languages, some of which are direct. For example,
get lost! (ie.
go away or
stop bothering me) is said to have originated from a
Persian expression.,
"gom sho!" which means, quite literally, "become lost."
While many idioms are clearly based in conceptual metaphors such as "time as a substance", "time as a path", "love as war" or "up is more", the idioms themselves are often not particularly essential, even when the metaphors themselves are. For example "spend time", "battle of the sexes", and "back in the day" are idiomatic and based in essential metaphors, but one can communicate perfectly well with or without them.
In forms like "profits are up", the metaphor is carried by "up" itself. The phrase "profits are up" is not itself an idiom. Practically anything measurable can be used in place of "profits": "crime is up", "satisfaction is up", "complaints are up" etc. Truly essential idioms generally involve prepositions, for example "out of" or "turn into".
Interestingly, many
Chinese characters are likewise idiomatic constructs, as their meanings are moreoften not traceable to a literal (ie.
pictographic) meaning of their assembled parts, or
radicals. Because all characters are composed from a relatively small base of about 214 radicals, their assembled meanings follow several different modes of interpretation - from the pictographic to the metaphorical to those whose original meaning has been lost in history.
Common features
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Non-compositionality: The meaning of a collocation is not a straightforward composition of the meaning of its parts. For example, the meaning of
kick the bucket has nothing to do with kicking buckets. (
Kick the bucket means to die.) See also
collocational restriction.
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Non-substitutability: One cannot substitute a word in a collocation with a related word. For example, we cannot say
kick the pail instead of
kick the bucket although
bucket and
pail are synonyms.
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Non-modifiability: One cannot modify a collocation or apply syntactic transformations. For example,
John kicked the green bucket or
the bucket was kicked has nothing to do with dying. (Although
John kicked his bucket and
John's bucket was kicked are both valid)
It is likely that every human language has idioms, and very many of them; a typical
English commercial
idiom dictionary lists about 4,000. When a local
dialect of a language contains many highly developed idioms it can be unintelligible to speakers of the parent language; a classic example is that of
Cockney rhyming slang. But note that most examples of
slang,
jargon and
catch phrases, while related to idioms, are not idioms in the sense discussed here. Also to be distinguished from idioms are
proverbs, which take the form of statements such as, "He who hesitates is lost." Many idioms could be considered
colloquialisms.
In
Spanish, the word
idioma (=
lengua) means
language, and this is often reflected in their
SL English—using
idiom to refer to language.
"Idiom" can also refer to the characteristic manner of speaking in a language, also called its
parlance.
Parlance is a word which originates from the Latin root "parl-", to speak. An utterance consistent with a language's parlance is described as
idiomatic. For example, "I have hunger" is idiomatic in several European languages if translated literally, but the usual English idiom is "I am hungry".
This sense is also carried over to
programming languages, where the former sense does not apply as an expression or statement in a programming language can generally have only one meaning. For example, in
Haskell, it is possible to apply a function to all members of a list using
recursion, but it is more idiomatic to use the
higher-order function map.
In computer science, an idiom is a low-level pattern that addresses a problem common in a particular programming language. An idiom describes how to implement particular aspects of components or the relationships between them using the features of the given language.
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Set phrase*
Wiktionary Idioms category*
List of idioms in the English language*
List of idioms in the Finnish language*
List of idioms in the French language*
List of idioms in the Portuguese language*
Four-character idiom (Chinese)
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Self-study Idiom Quizzes by The Internet TESL Journal*
Slang and Idioms in English for ESL Students*
Oxid Free Online Dictionary Free Online English Dictionary and Thesaurus containing definitions, explanations, synonyms, antonyms, meanings, idioms, words and terms using Merriam Websters Dictionary, Wordnet Reference and Roget's Thesaurus Definitions.
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Idioms as figures of speech*
List of idioms by James Briggs*
British and American Idioms search*
Amerispeak - expressions of our American ancestors*Idioms Quizzes -
Idioms Quiz 1 Idioms Quiz 2 Idioms Quiz 3 More Quizzes*
Idiom Examples Listen to idioms and learn the meaning of idioms.
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What Does That Mean? A wiki based lexicon of English idioms.
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Figures of Speech by Rob Bradshaw Examples of how the Bible uses idioms.
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Dictionary of English Idioms & Idiomatic Expressions*
Phrase Finder
