Idiosyncratic vs Idiomatic - What's the difference?
idiosyncratic | idiomatic |
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, "
Pertaining or conforming to the mode of expression characteristic of a language.
Resembling or characteristic of an idiom.
Using many idioms.
(music) Parts or pieces which are written both within the natural physical limitations of the instrument and human body and, less so or less often, the styles of playing used on specific instruments.
As adjectives the difference between idiosyncratic and idiomatic
is that idiosyncratic is peculiar to a specific individual; eccentric while idiomatic is pertaining or conforming to the mode of expression characteristic of a language.idiosyncratic
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.
