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In the traditional grammar of Modern English, a phrasal verb typically constitutes a single semantic unit consisting of a verb followed by a particle (e.g., turn down, run into, or sit up), sometimes collocated with a preposition (e.g., get together with, run out of, or feed off of). Phrasal verbs ordinarily cannot be understood based upon the ...
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).
A phrasal verb is written as two words that are analyzed semantically as a unit, but the unit may be separable under certain circumstances. For example, regarding a phrasal verb that has a transitive sense: Turn off the light OR Turn the light off. (optional tmesis) Hand in the application OR Hand it in. (optional tmesis) Similarly, tmesis can ...
Do not cut off your nose to spite your face; Do not dish it if you can't take it; Do not judge a book by its cover; Do not keep a dog and bark yourself; Do not let the bastards grind you down; Do not let the grass grow beneath (one's) feet; Do not look a gift horse in the mouth; Do not make a mountain out of a mole hill
In linguistics, phraseology is the study of set or fixed expressions, such as idioms, phrasal verbs, and other types of multi-word lexical units (often collectively referred to as phrasemes), in which the component parts of the expression take on a meaning more specific than, or otherwise not predictable from, the sum of their meanings when used independently.
Cut and run or cut-and-run is an idiomatic verb phrase meaning to "make off promptly" or to "hurry off". The phrase was in use by the 1700s to describe an act allowing a ship to make sail quickly in an urgent situation, by cutting free an anchor.
Many fixed idioms lack semantic composition, meaning that the idiom contains the semantic role of a verb, but not of any object. This is true of kick the bucket , which means die . By contrast, the semantically composite idiom spill the beans , meaning reveal a secret , contains both a semantic verb and object, reveal and secret .
The following is a list of English words without rhymes, called refractory rhymes—that is, a list of words in the English language that rhyme with no other English word. . The word "rhyme" here is used in the strict sense, called a perfect rhyme, that the words are pronounced the same from the vowel of the main stressed syllable onwa