Search the Dictionary

A phrase or form of speech in accordance with genius and construction or idioms of the Greek language; a Grecism. Addison.

atory; as, hermeneutic theology, or the art of expounding the Scriptures; a hermeneutic phrase.

A peculiarly apt expression or turn of thought; a phrase which hits the mark; as, a happy hit.

passion. [Usually under the form hobby.] Not one of them has any hobbyhorse, to use the phrase of Sterne. Macaulay.

Expressing a phrase or sentence in a single word, -- as is the case in the aboriginal languages of America.

To one's home or country; as in the phrases, go home, come home, carry home.

Household affairs; domestic concerns; particularly in the phrase to keep house. See below.

Privacy; secrecy. Commonly in the phrase in hugger-mugger, with haste and secrecy. [Archaic] Many things have been done in hugger-mugger. Fuller.

on; to submit or apologize abjectly; to yield passively to insult or humilitation; -- a phrase derived from a pie made of the entrails or humbles of a deer, which was formerly served to servants and retainers at a hunting feast. See Humbles. Halliwell. Thackeray.

In the phrase on one's hunkers, in a squatting or crouching position. [Scot. & Local, U. S.]

iar to itself and not agreeing with the logical sense of its structural form; also, the phrase forms peculiar to a particular author. Some that with care true eloquence shall teach, And to just idioms fix our doubtful speech. Prior. Sometimes we identify the words with the object -- though be courtesy of idiom rather t…

, the mode of expression peculiar to a language; as, an idiomatic meaning; an idiomatic phrase. -- Id`i*o*mat"ic*al*ly, adv.

A dictionary of a peculiar dialect, or of the words and phrases peculiar to one part of a country; a glossary.

y when there was not sufficient evidence to warrant them in finding it a true bill. The phrase now used is, "No bill," "No true bill," or "Not found," though in some jurisdictions "Ignored" is still used. Wharton (Law Dict. ). Burn.

ith rule, fitness, or propriety; incorrect; rude; unpolished; inelegant. That 's an ill phrase. Shak. Ill at ease, uneasy; uncomfortable; anxious. "I am very ill at ease." Shak. -- Ill blood, enmity; resentment. -- Ill breeding, want of good breeding; rudeness. -- Ill fame, ill or bad repute; as, a house of ill fame…

stency in polyphonic composition; the repetition of essentially the same melodic theme, phrase, or motive, on different degrees of pitch, by one or more of the other parts of voises. Cf. Canon.

That which a word, phrase, or document contains as its signification or intention or interpretation of a word, action, event, and the like.

s an adverb by omission of its object, leaving it as the representative of an adverbial phrase, the context indicating what the omitted object is; as, he takes in the situation (i. e., he comprehends it in his mind); the Republicans were in (i. e., in office); in at one ear and out at the other (i. e., in or into the h…

An inceptive word, phrase, or clause.

porative languages (as of the Basques, North American Indians, etc. ) which run a whole phrase into one word. History demonstrates that incorporative unions are solid and permanent; but that a federal union is weak. W. Belsham.