Idiomaticity

//ˈɪd.i.əʊ.məˈtɪ.si.ti// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The quality of being idiomatic. uncountable

    "If we allow for different kinds of lexical and phrasal items to exhibit certain degrees of idiomaticity, the ultimate question is what kind of theoretical model can handle this continuum, and how core idioms relate to other kinds of idiomatic constructions within that model."

  2. 2
    An instance or category of instances of that quality. countable, rare
  3. 3
    The state of a linguistic expression which exists when the expression exhibits semantic-pragmatic divergence, when the semantic value of the expression differs from its pragmatic value; that is to say, idiomaticity exists when the inherent meaning of the words expressed does not match the meaning of the expression as understood by the users: the sayer(s) and hearer(s). countable, rare

Synonyms

All synonyms
idiomidiomacyidiomaticness

Example

More examples

"If we allow for different kinds of lexical and phrasal items to exhibit certain degrees of idiomaticity, the ultimate question is what kind of theoretical model can handle this continuum, and how core idioms relate to other kinds of idiomatic constructions within that model."

Etymology

From idiomatic + -ity.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.