Idiosyncrasy
noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A behavior or way of thinking that is characteristic of a person or a group.
"This mode of death had been an idiosyncrasy with his family, for generations past; not often occurring, indeed, but, when it does occur, usually attacking individuals about the Judge’s time of life, and generally in the tension of some mental crisis, or, perhaps, in an access of wrath."
- 2 a behavioral attribute that is distinctive and peculiar to an individual wordnet
- 3 A peculiar individual reaction to a generally innocuous substance or factor; a risk factor.
"[…]I have no antipathy, or rather Idio-ſyncraſie, in dyet, humour, ayre, any thing; […]."
- 4 A peculiarity that serves to distinguish or identify.
"He mastered the idiosyncrasies of English spelling and speech."
Example
More examples"As far as I understand despite my limited knowledge, here in Venezuela we must adapt to the prevailing mentality and social order. Therefore, an individual must live among opportunism, poverty, manipulation and superficiality. It might be a very characteristic Latino idiosyncrasy to behave as in the book "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" by Gabriel García Márquez when it comes to dealing with delicate situations. Everybody knows what's happening, but nobody raises his voice and even if somebody did, nobody would support him. Only enlightenment through education could end the ignorance that is a scourge on our people, from which many other problems arise. However, it's unlikely to expect a government to propose to spread values that threaten its own interests, because it's better for them to keep society ignorant in order to manipulate it with ease."
Etymology
First attested in 1604, in modern sense since 1665, from Ancient Greek ἰδιοσυγκρασία (idiosunkrasía, “one’s own temperament”), from ἴδιος (ídios, “one’s own”) + σύν (sún, “together”) + κρᾶσις (krâsis, “temperament”). By surface analysis, idio- + syn- + -crasy.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.