Did you know?
The Makeup of Idioms
If you had never heard someone say "We're on the same page," would you have understood that they weren't talking about a book? And the first time someone said he'd "ride shotgun", did you wonder where the gun was? A modern English-speaker knows thousands of idioms, and uses many every day. Idioms can be completely ordinary ("first off", "the other day", "make a point of", "What's up?") or more colorful ("asleep at the wheel", "bite the bullet", "knuckle sandwich"). A particular type of idiom, called a phrasal verb, consists of a verb followed by an adverb or preposition (or sometimes both); in make over, make out, and make up, for instance, notice how the meanings have nothing to do with the usual meanings of over, out, and up.
Examples of idiom in a Sentence
P. J. O'Rourke, New York Times Book Review, 9 Oct. 2005
And the prospect of recovering a nearly lost language, the idiom and scrappy slang of the postwar period …
—Don DeLillo, New York Times Magazine, 7 Sept. 1997
We need to explicate the ways in which specific themes, fears, forms of consciousness, and class relationships are embedded in the use of Africanist idiom …
—Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark, 1992
The expression “give way,” meaning “retreat,” is an idiom.
rock and roll and other musical idioms
a feature of modern jazz idiom
Andrew Gilbert, The Mercury News, 9 Apr. 2024
The book is about so much more as well: meditations, as in working out in thought, on pedagogy, dogma, ill-fitting idioms.
—Lauren Michele Jackson, The New Yorker, 7 Apr. 2024
See all Example Sentences for idiom 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'idiom.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Middle French & Late Latin; Middle French idiome, from Late Latin idioma individual peculiarity of language, from Greek idiōmat-, idiōma, from idiousthai to appropriate, from idios
1575, in the meaning defined at sense 2a
Dictionary Entries Near idiom
Cite this Entry
“Idiom.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idiom. Accessed 18 Apr. 2024.
Copy Citation
Kids Definition
idiom
noun
More from Merriam-Webster on idiom
Nglish: Translation of idiom for Spanish Speakers
Britannica English: Translation of idiom for Arabic Speakers
Share