Eclectic vs Idiosyncratic - What's the difference?
eclectic | idiosyncratic |
Selecting a mixture of what appears to be best of various doctrines, methods or styles.
* 1893 , John Robson, Hinduism and its Relations to Christianity , page 211, 214
Unrelated and unspecialized; heterogeneous.
* 1983 , Peter J. Wilson, Man, the Promising Primate: The Conditions of Human Evolution , page 140
* 2006 , W. Frederick Zimmerman, Should Barack Obama Be President? , page 153
Peculiar to a specific individual; eccentric.
* 1886 , (Robert Louis Stevenson), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , ch. 9:
* 1891 , (George MacDonald), The Flight of the Shadow , ch. 12:
* 1982 , Michael Walsh, "
As adjectives the difference between eclectic and idiosyncratic
is that eclectic is selecting a mixture of what appears to be best of various doctrines, methods or styles while idiosyncratic is peculiar to a specific individual; eccentric.As a noun eclectic
is someone who selects according to the eclectic method.eclectic
English
Alternative forms
* eclectick (obsolete)Adjective
(en adjective)- Chunder Sen and the Progressive Brahmists broke entirely with Hinduism...and he selected from the scriptures of all creeds what seemed best in them for instruction and for worship. It is an eclectic' religion: it seeks to select what is good from all religions, and it has become the latest evidence that no ' eclectic religion can ever influence large numbers of men.
- All members of the Hominoidea, apes and man, show an eclectic taste in food but select, from a wide range of possibilities, only a few to provide the bulk of their diet.
- Colvin said Obama has an eclectic taste in music, listening to everything from Indonesian flute music to OutKast to Motown.
Derived terms
* eclectically * eclecticismSynonyms
* (unrelated and unspecialized) heterogeneousAntonyms
* (selecting a mixture of doctrines) exclusive, homogeneous, orthodox, standard, uniformSee also
* cherry pick * heterocliteidiosyncratic
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- At the time, I set it down to some idiosyncratic , personal distaste . . . but I have since had reason to believe the cause to lie much deeper in the nature of man.
- It was no merely idiosyncratic experience, for the youth had the same: it was love!
Music: A Fresh Falstaff in Los Angeles," Time , 26 April:
- British Director Ronald Eyre kept the action crisp; he was correctly content to execute the composer's wishes, rather than impose a fashionably idiosyncratic view of his own.