Word.ws English Dictionary

set phrases

set phrases is the plural of set phrase.

Meaning of set phrase

Noun

set phrase (plural set phrases)

  1. An established expression whose wording is subject to little or no variation, and which may or may not be idiomatic.
    • Bally remarks in passing, as Hall does not, that the inversion in toujours est-il que is part of a set phrase and hence invariable.1951, Gordon M. Messing, “Structuralism and Literary Tradition”, in Language, volume 27, number 1, page 3
  2. An idiomatic expression in general.
    • If it proves clearly unfeasible to make the audience laugh at a thin and far-fetched joke, it is always better to change the way the joke works . . . for instance, a pun based on the speaker's taking literally some set phrase or metaphor with a pun based on phonetic similarity.1992, Stanislaw Baranczak, "How to Translate Shakespeare's Humor?: (Reflections of a Polish Translator)", in the Performing Arts Journal, volume 14, number 3, page 83

Questions about set phrases

What is set phrases the plural of?
Set phrases is the plural of set phrase.

Words near set phrases in the dictionary

  1. set out one's stall
  2. set over
  3. set pen to paper
  4. set phasers to
  5. set phrase
  6. set phrases
  7. set piece
  8. set pieces
  9. set point
  10. set point theory
  11. set points

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: set phrases (page history and authors); set phrase (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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