Incidental vs Idiosyncratic - What's the difference?
incidental | idiosyncratic |
Loosely associated; existing as a byproduct, tangent, or accident.
Entering or approaching, prior to reflection (more frequently incident).
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 incidental and idiosyncratic
is that incidental is loosely associated; existing as a byproduct, tangent, or accident while idiosyncratic is peculiar to a specific individual; eccentric.As a noun incidental
is incidental expense.incidental
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- That character, though colorful, is incidental to the overall plot.
Derived terms
* incidental expense * incidentallySynonyms
*(existing as an accident) accidental, contingentAntonyms
*(existing as an accident) inevitable, necessary, impossibleAnagrams
* ----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.