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What is an Idiomatic Expression?
Article by Terry Bates

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Languages are full of idiomatic expressions or idioms. People who speak English, and even yourself in your own native language, use idiomatic expressions in your everyday speech. Native speakers are usually not aware that they are using idioms but a non-native speaker will find idioms very illogical and difficult to learn.

Idiomatic expressions can be just one word or a group of words. If you try to understand an idiomatic expression literally, in most cases, it will make very little sense. The objective of an idiom is to try to develop a new meaning that goes beyond the literal significance.

First, let's take a very simple word such as "hand" and make a literal sentence that is not an idiomatic expression.

Bill has two hands, a right hand and a left hand.
(literal sentence)

Now, using the same word "hand", we will make a typical idiomatic expression.

Bill is an old hand in the store.
(This means that Bill has a lot of experience in the store. An "old hand" refers to a person with experience.)

Idiomatic expressions have different forms and structures. They can be short with only one word or they can be long using combinations of words.

John is a nut.
(John is crazy.)

Bob has the bull by the horns.
(Bob has the situation under control.)

A definition that is popular in the modern sense is that idioms are illogical expressions that by common agreement of the speakers develop new meaning.

Idiomatic expressions are used in formal and informal language. Many idioms are centuries old but we are continuously faced with new expressions that are daily invented to describe a new world we are living in.

Copyright, Terry Bates, 2007

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