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Mantra: a religious, mystical, or other spiritual saying that is repeated, for example, in meditation. Maxim: (1) an instructional expression of a general principle or rule of morality or (2) simply a synonym for "aphorism"; they include: Brocard; Gnome; Legal maxim; Motto: a saying used frequently by a person or group to summarize its general ...
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).
The concept is generally distinct from those of an adage, brocard, chiasmus, epigram, maxim (legal or philosophical), principle, proverb, and saying; although some of these concepts could be construed as types of aphorism. Often aphorisms are distinguished from other short sayings by the need for interpretation to make sense of them.
Take care of the pennies, and the pounds will take care of themselves; Talk is cheap; Talk of the Devil, and he is bound to appear; Talk of Angels, and hear the flutter of their wings; Tell me who your friends are, and I'll tell you who you are [26] Tell the truth and shame the Devil (Shakespeare, Henry IV) The age of miracles is past
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 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 ...
[from] a maxim, simply: I.e. "from a rule without exception." Short for a dicto simpliciter, the a is often dropped because it is confused with the English indefinite article. A dicto simpliciter occurs when an acceptable exception is ignored or eliminated. For example, the appropriateness of using opiates is contingent on suffering extreme pain.
For example, the phrase, "John, my best friend" uses the scheme known as apposition. Tropes (from Greek trepein, 'to turn') change the general meaning of words. An example of a trope is irony, which is the use of words to convey the opposite of their usual meaning ("For Brutus is an honorable man; / So are they all, all honorable men").