phraseology

Noun

phraseology (usually uncountable, plural phraseologies)

1. (usually) Study of set or fixed expressions.
2. (usually) The style in which words and phrases are used in writing or speech.
   • I was riding through the forest, when suddenly (pray correct my phraseology if too worldly—you know I am not well read in these epics of the heart) I saw a knight and his lady traversing one of the glades; the golden sunshine fell athwart the green leaves, and showed their white steeds and whiter...1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter III, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 28
3. (usually) A group of specialized words and expressions used by a particular group.
   • Fortunately, two servants she had brought with her, were devotedly attached to their mistress; and the others only entering her apartments at rare intervals, did not understand her mystic allusions; and she now, more than ever, affected to veil her meaning under the mysterious phraseology so much...1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “An Interview”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 209
   • Light is, therefore, only an attendant circumstance in the production of the photo­graphic picture; and this seems proved by the fact of one body impressing its image upon another in the dark, when the bodies are ap­proximated at what, in electrical phraseology, is called the striking distance.1846, unknown, “On the Theory of Photographic Action”, in Scientific American, volume 2, number 13, page 104
4. (usually) A collection of phrases; a phrasebook.