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An idiom is a phrase or expression that largely or exclusively carries a figurative or non-literal meaning, rather than making any literal sense. Categorized as formulaic language , an idiomatic expression's meaning is different from the literal meanings of each word inside it. [ 1 ]
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).
SNAFU is widely used to stand for the sarcastic expression Situation Normal: All Fucked Up, as a well-known example of military acronym slang. However, the military acronym originally stood for "Status Nominal: All Fucked Up."
An idiom dictionary may be a traditional book or expressed in another medium such as a database within software for machine translation.Examples of the genre include Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, which explains traditional allusions and proverbs, and Fowler's Modern English Usage, which was conceived as an idiom dictionary following the completion of the Concise Oxford English ...
Dead ringer (idiom) Death and taxes (idiom) The devil is in the details; Devil's advocate; Die with your boots on; The Dog in the Manger; Don't judge a book by its cover; Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater; Down the rabbit hole; Down Under; Duck test
The expression "the elephant in the room" (or "the elephant in the living room") [2] [3] is a metaphorical idiom in English for an important or enormous topic, question, or controversial issue that is obvious or that everyone knows about but no one mentions or wants to discuss because it makes at least some of them uncomfortable and is ...
According to Cassell's Dictionary of Slang, the meaning also means "to kill, to murder; to execute judicially," likely referring to the size of a standard grave being 2.5 feet wide by 8 feet long and 6 feet deep. [1] [5] This usage was derived from the slang term used in restaurants. [6] Other slang dictionaries confirm this definition. [7] [8] [6]
Willy-nilly is an English-language idiom and a slang which describes an activity, an action or event that is done in a disorganized, unplanned, or vacillating manner. [1] [2] [3] The term is derived from Shakespearian expression "will ye, nill ye", which is a contraction that means “whether one wants to or not.” [4]