Word.ws English Dictionary

idiomatology

idiomatology noun: the study of idioms and idiomatic language.

Noun

idiomatology (uncountable)

  1. The study of idioms and idiomatic language
    • Mr. Alan Gardiner's Home Thoughts on Language emboldens one to ask whether there is not room for a science of Idiomatology* as a sister to Semantics.1919, H.A. Rose, “Comparative "Idiomatology"”, in Man, page 133
    • His aim is language characterization as to its system, a kind of idiomatology.1952, Claire Eileen Craddock, Style theories as found in stylistic studies of Romance scholars, 1900-1950, page 32

Origin of idiomatology

From idiomatic + -ology. Contemporary use is traced to George W. Grace in the unpublished 1977 paper "Language: An Ethnolinguistic Essay". However, the term had been coined at least twice previously in the same sense.

Questions about idiomatology

What does idiomatology mean?
Idiomatology means the study of idioms and idiomatic language.
What part of speech is idiomatology?
Idiomatology is a noun.

Words near idiomatology in the dictionary

  1. idiomatizations
  2. idiomatize
  3. idiomatized
  4. idiomatizes
  5. idiomatizing
  6. idiomatology
  7. idiomela
  8. idiomelon
  9. idiomere
  10. idiomeres
  11. idiometer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: idiomatology (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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