Noun

(en-noun)

A manner of speaking, a way of expressing oneself.

A language or dialect.

Specifically, a particular variety of language; a restricted dialect used in a given historical period, context etc.

* 2010 , (Christopher Hitchens), "The Other'' L-Word", ''Vanity Fair , 13 Jan 2010:

Many parents and teachers have become irritated to the point of distraction at the way the weed-style growth of "like" has spread through the idiom of the young.

An artistic style (for example, in art, architecture, or music); an instance of such a style.

An expression peculiar to or characteristic of a particular language, especially when the meaning is illogical or separate from the meanings of its component words.

* 2008 , Patricia Hampl, “You’re History”, in Patricia Hampl and Elaine Tyler May (editors), Tell Me True: Memoir, History, and Writing a Life , Minnesota Historical Society, ISBN 9780873516303, page 134:

You’re history , we say . Surely it is an American idiom . Impossible to imagine a postwar European saying, “You’re history. . . . That’s history,” meaning fuhgeddaboudit, pal.

(programming) A programming construct or phraseology generally held to be the most efficient, elegant or effective means to achieve a particular result or behavior.

* {{quote-book, 2005, Magnus Lie Hetland, Beginning Python: From Novice to Professional, page=100, isbn=159059519X

, passage=I have to use the same assignment and call to raw_input in two places. How can I avoid that? I can use the while True/break idiom :

Noun

(en noun)

Expression and exchange of individual ideas through talking with other people; also, a set instance or occasion of such talking.

* 1699 , , Heads designed for an essay on conversations

Study gives strength to the mind; conversation , grace: the first apt to give stiffness, the other suppleness: one gives substance and form to the statue, the other polishes it.

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5 , passage=When this conversation was repeated in detail within the hearing of the young woman in question, and undoubtedly for his benefit, Mr. Trevor threw shame to the winds and scandalized the Misses Brewster then and there by proclaiming his father to have been a country storekeeper.}}

* , chapter=12

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill.

(fencing) The back-and-forth play of the blades in a bout.

(obsolete) Interaction; commerce or intercourse with other people; dealing with others.

* 1526 , (William Tyndale), trans. Bible , Acts XI:

Yt chaunsed thatt a whole yere they had their conversacion with the congregacion there, and taught moche people insomoche thatt the disciples off Antioche we the fyrst that wer called Christen.

(archaic) Behaviour, the way one conducts oneself; a person's way of life.

*, New York Review of Books, 2001, p.50:

There are many that take no heed what happeneth to others by bad conversation , and therefore overthrow themselves in the same manner through their own fault, not foreseeing dangers manifest.

(obsolete) Sexual intercourse.

* 1723 , Charles Walker, Memoirs of the Life of Sally Salisbury :

(Ariadne)quitted her Lover (Theseus), for the tumultuous Conversation of (Bacchus).

* 1749 , (Henry Fielding), , Folio Society 1973, p. 333:

The landlady therefore would by no means have admitted any conversation of a disreputable kind to pass under her roof.

(computing) The protocol-based interaction between systems processing a transaction.