as in phrase
a sequence of words having a specific meaning
the English idiom "how are you doing?" is our version of a greeting that in some other languages can be translated as "how are you going?"
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of idiom
Further into the party hub of Anjuna, restaurants like Slow Tide are finding an idiom of their own, reinterpreting flavors of the Konkan coast and shaking up some surprising feni cocktails with local ingredients and seasonal cues.
—
Arati Menon, Condé Nast Traveler, 18 Dec. 2024
Even names, idioms, and cultural references are sometimes exoticized or reduced to caricatures, reinforcing narrow or misleading representations.
—Diana Spehar, Forbes.com, 1 May 2025
At that time, writers like Ashbery and Frank O’Hara were helping to establish a new idiom in American poetry, something serious without self-seriousness: the new poetry was open to the city’s rhythms, irreverent but tender—and clearly, if not openly, gay.
—David S. Wallace, The New Yorker, 19 Mar. 2025
Ultimately, Andrews and his actors find Chekhov by abandoning the paraphernalia of the writer’s universe and groping, in their own idiom, across a perilously empty stage, toward one another.
—Sara Holdren, Vulture, 4 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for idiom
Arati Menon, Condé Nast Traveler, 18 Dec. 2024
Even names, idioms, and cultural references are sometimes exoticized or reduced to caricatures, reinforcing narrow or misleading representations.
—Diana Spehar, Forbes.com, 1 May 2025
At that time, writers like Ashbery and Frank O’Hara were helping to establish a new idiom in American poetry, something serious without self-seriousness: the new poetry was open to the city’s rhythms, irreverent but tender—and clearly, if not openly, gay.
—David S. Wallace, The New Yorker, 19 Mar. 2025
Ultimately, Andrews and his actors find Chekhov by abandoning the paraphernalia of the writer’s universe and groping, in their own idiom, across a perilously empty stage, toward one another.
—Sara Holdren, Vulture, 4 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for idiom
Recent Examples of Synonyms for idiom
phrase
Noun
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That much of the act’s power can be destroyed by tweaking its definition of one phrase reveals its central weakness.—
Emma Marris,
The Atlantic,
25 May 2025
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The impetus to travel overland to Afghanistan at 19 came from a need — for want of a better phrase — to discover something within myself, not to discover Afghanistan.—
Sean Woods,
Rolling Stone,
24 May 2025
Cite this Entry
“Idiom.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/idiom. Accessed 7 Jun. 2025.
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