ˈidēəm noun
( -s )
Etymology: Middle French & Late Latin; Middle French idiome, from Late Latin idioma, from Greek idiōma peculiarity, peculiarity of style, idiom, from idiousthai to appropriate, from idios one's own, private, peculiar — more at idiot
1.
a. : the language proper or peculiar to a people or to a district, community, or class : tongue , dialect
b. : the syntactical, grammatical, or structural form peculiar to a language : the genius, habit, or cast of a language
2. : an expression established in the usage of a language that is peculiar to itself either in grammatical construction (as no, it wasn't me ) or in having a meaning that cannot be derived as a whole from the conjoined meanings of its elements (as Monday week for “the Monday a week after next Monday”; many a for “many taken distributively”; had better for “might better”; how are you? for “what is the state of your health or feelings?”)
3. : a style or form of artistic expression (as in painting, writing, composing) that is characteristic especially of an individual, a period or movement, or a medium or instrument
an interesting orchestral idiom
surrealist idiom
imagination has its specific hereditary idioms — George Santayana
Synonyms: see language