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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).
Based on common linguistic definitions, an idiom is a combination of words that contains a meaning that cannot be understood based on the literal definition of the individual words. [1] An example of an idiom is hit the sack, which means to go to bed. It can be used in a sentence like the following: I'm beat; I'm gonna hit the sack. [2]
That compositionality is the key notion for the analysis of idioms emphasized in most accounts of idioms. [5] [6] This principle states that the meaning of a whole should be constructed from the meanings of the parts that make up the whole. In other words, one should be in a position to understand the whole if one understands the meanings of ...
"Greatest however [is] water" — Pindar, Olymp. 1, 1 Used as the inscription over the Pump Room at Bath. αὐτὸς ἔφα autòs épha Ipse dixit "He himself said it" Argument from authority made by the disciples of Pythagoras when appealing to the pronouncements of the master rather than to reason or evidence.
Various sentences using the syllables mā, má, mǎ, mà, and ma are often used to illustrate the importance of tones to foreign learners. One example: Chinese: 妈妈骑马马慢妈妈骂马; pinyin: māma qí mǎ, mǎ màn, māma mà mǎ; lit. 'Mother is riding a horse... the horse is slow... mother scolds the horse'. [37]
Printable version; In other projects ... This category has the following 5 subcategories, out of 5 total. ... List of idioms of improbability;
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 ...
It is not known for certain, but the most likely origin of the phrase is the dice game "hazard", a more complicated version of the modern game of craps. [1]Michael Quinion, a British etymologist, writing on his website on linguistics, says, "It is thought that the expression was originally to set on cinque and sice (from the French numerals for five and six).