Idiom

(id'e-om.) [From Gr. idiom a, a peculiarity.] (Philol.) A term which designates such phrases as are verbal idiosyncrasies, or words or inflections of speech so peculiar to a language, that, when transferred or translated into another, they do not convey the same meaning, if indeed any meaning at all. 1, in fact, will not bear literal translation or adaptation. They are often, however, introduced in their pure state into alien languages, and are in such cases distinctively known as exotics; thus, a Latin I. is termed a Latinism; a Scottish 1., a Scotticism, and so forth. [s. 476]