cliche A trite or overused expression or idea: “Even while the phrase was degenerating to cliché in ordinary public use . . . scholars were giving it increasing attention” (Anthony Brandt).A person or character whose behavior is predictable or superficial: “There is a young explorer . . . who turns out not to be quite the cliche expected” (John Crowley).[French, past participle of clicher, to stereotype (imitative of the sound made when the matrix is dropped into molten metal to make a stereotype plate).]SYNONYMS cliché, bromide, commonplace, platitude, truism. These nouns denote an expression or idea that has lost its originality or force through overuse: a short story weakened by clichés; the old bromide that we are what we eat; uttered the commonplace “welcome aboard”; a eulogy full of platitudes; a once-original thought that has become a truism.Definition: overused, hackneyed phraseAntonyms: coinage, nuanceA much used expression that has lost its freshness and descriptive power. Some clichés are “I thank you from the bottom of my heart” and “It’s only a drop in the bucket.” An expression or idea that has become stale from too much use.http://www.answers.com/clicheidiomA speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements, as in keep tabs on.The specific grammatical, syntactic, and structural character of a given language.Regional speech or dialect. 1. A specialized vocabulary used by a group of people; jargon: legal idiom. 2. A style or manner of expression peculiar to a given people: “Also important is the uneasiness I've always felt at cutting myself off from my idiom, the American habits of speech and jest and reaction, all of them entirely different from the local variety” (S.J. Perelman).A style of artistic expression characteristic of a particular individual, school, period, or medium: the idiom of the French impressionists; the punk rock idiom.[Late Latin idiōma, idiōmat-, from Greek, from idiousthai, to make one’s own, from idios, own, personal, private.]Definition: manner of speaking, turn of phrase Antonyms: standarda phrase or grammatical construction that cannot be translated literally into another language because its meaning is not equivalent to that of its component words. Common examples, of which there are thousands in English, include follow suit, hell for leather, flat broke, on the wagon, well hung, etc. By extension, the term is sometimes applied more loosely to any style or manner of writing that is characteristic of a particular group or movement.A traditional way of saying something. Often an idiom, such as “under the weather,” does not seem to make sense if taken literally. Someone unfamiliar with English idioms would probably not understand that to be “under the weather” is to be sick. A phrase or expression with a meaning different from the meanings of the individual words.An idiom is an expression (i.e., term or phrase) whose meaning cannot be deduced from the literal definitions and the arrangement of its parts, but refers instead to a figurative meaning that is known only through common use. In linguistics, idioms are widely assumed to be figures of speech that contradict the principle of compositionality; however, some debate has recently arisen on this subject.Example: I’m going to blow my top.In the English language expression to kick the bucket, for example, a listener knowing only the meaning of kick and bucket would be unable to deduce the expression’s actual meaning, which is to die. Although it can refer literally to the act of striking a specific bucket with a foot, native speakers rarely use it that way. It cannot be directly translated to other languages – for example, the same expression in Polish is to kick the calendar, with the calendar being as detached from its usual meaning as the bucket in the English phrase is. The same expression in Dutch is het loodje leggen (to lay the piece of lead), which is entirely different from the English expression, too. Other expressions include break a leg, crossing the Rubicon and fit as a fiddle. It is estimated that William Shakespeare coined over 2,000 idioms still in use today.[citation needed]Idioms hence tend to confuse those not already familiar with them; students of a new language must learn its idiomatic expressions the way they learn its other vocabulary. In fact many natural language words have idiomatic origins, but have been sufficiently assimilated so that their figurative senses have been lost.http://www.answers.com/idiom...
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