Idiom

An idiom is a phrase or expression whose meaning cannot be deduced from the literal meanings of its component words. Idioms are fixed in form and function as a single unit of meaning within a sentence.

Examples include kick the bucket (to die), spill the beans (to reveal a secret), and break the ice (to ease initial social tension). Because idioms rely on conventional figurative meanings, direct translations can be misleading, and idioms often vary between languages and dialects.

Idioms can be opaque, with little or no obvious connection between form and sense, or more transparent, where the figurative meaning is easier to infer. They are typically non-productive in creating new phrases, though they may tolerate limited inflection or minor syntactic variation, and some allow slight word order changes.

Linguists distinguish idioms from metaphors, proverbs, and collocations. Idioms differ from proverbs in that idioms are conventional phrases with figurative meaning, not general truths; and they differ from collocations by having a meaning that is not simply a sum of the individual words. Idioms are a widespread feature of languages and play a significant role in language learning, translation, and natural-language processing.