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- In a broad sense, an idiom is a long-lived group of words characteristic of a language (sometimes impossible to translate ad litteram into another language), comprising grammatical collocations and phrases (fusions, unities and free combinations), most of them being based on degraded metaphors;
- In a strict sense, an idiom is tantamount to a phraseological fusion.
According to The Oxford Companion to the English Language (OUP 1992), the term idiom finds its etymology in Latin idioma and Greek idíōma meaning at the beginning a specific property, a special phrasing, from idios = one’s own, personal, private. Archaically, there has been another term, idiotism which has two acceptations. On the one hand it denotes the speech proper to, or typical of, a people or place; a dialect or local language; the unique quality or ‘genius’ of a language. On the other hand it denotes an expression unique to a language, especially one whose sense is not predictable from the meanings and arrangement of its elements, such as kick the bucket, a slang term meaning ‘to die’, which has nothing to do with kicking or buckets.
In linguistics the term idiomaticity refers to the nature of idioms and the degree to which a usage can be regarded as idiomatic. Some expressions are moe holophrastic and unanalysable than others: for example, to take steps is literal and non-idiomatic in the baby took her first steps, but it may be considered as figurative, grammatically open, and semi-idiomatic in They took some steps to put the matter right, and it may become fully idiomatic and grammatically closed in She took steps to see that was done. These examples demonstrate a continuum of meaning and use that is true for many usages. No such continuum exists, however, between he kicked the buck out of the way and he kicked the bucket last night. Such idioms are particularly rigid: for example they cannot be passivized (the bucket was kicked) or otherwise adapted (bucket-kicking as a synonym for death).
The Oxford Companion to the English Language also mentions that “although idioms are normally simply slotted into speech and writing, they are occasionally subject to creative word-play, (e.g. on the other hand may become on the other paw in the context of kitten food or kitten shelter)”
In the same dictionary we find that “it is not unusual for even fluent speakers in the heat of conversation to bled or splice two idioms or collocations whose forms and meanings are similar.” The following example speaks volume of the idea cited above: “That seems an interesting step to go down” (splicing step to take and road to go down).
Nevertheless, linguists tend to give often incongruous definitions to idioms, thus making it quite difficult to disentangle their essential features. Nevertheless, they are quite often seen as “a terror to any student with a logical and orderly mind. Many of them, indeed, are beyond any common-sensible explanation whatever… Others are based, in fact, on anything which can be employed to convey one’s thoughts briefly and effectively.”[1]
Idioms are divided by Treble and Vallins[2] into:
a. Grammatical Idioms – those in which grammar and idioms agree, e.g. There is a ladder there.
b. Ungrammatical Idioms – those in which grammar and idioms disagree, e.g. “It’s me”. “,more than pleased”, “ in less than no time”
c. Prepositional Idioms - those making use of prepositions in idiomatic phrases, e.g. by chance, at least, after all, etc.
d. Metaphorical Idioms - those based on metaphors, e.g. a broken reed, a sly dog, etc.
Hornby’s Dictionary (1990) defines the term idiom as :
a. a group succession of words that must be learnt as a whole because it is difficult or impossible to understand the meaning from knowledge of the words considered separately;
b. a form of expressions peculiar to a people, district, group of people, country, or to one individual, as the French idiom, or the Shakespeare idiom
Webster’s Unabridged Encyclopedic Dictionary (1994) defines it as follows:
a. the language or dialect of a people, social class, etc.
b. the usual way in which the words of a language are joined together to express thought;
c. an accepted phrase, construction, or expression contrary to the usual patterns of the language or having a meaning different from the literal;
d. the style of expressions characteristic of an individual, as the idiom of Carlyle, Shakespeare, etc.
Leviţchi (1976) defines idioms as “special forms of speech that are peculiar to the instinct of a language…”, they can also be considered, as W. McMordie (1967) does, as “peculiar uses of particular words, and also particular phrases or turns of expressions which, from long usage, have become stereotyped in English, or any other language”.
