Meanings
- uncountableThe study of idioms and idiomatic language
His aim is language characterization as to its system, a kind of idiomatology.
1952, Claire Eileen Craddock, Style theories as found in stylistic studies of Romance scholars, 1900-1950, page 322 more examples
Mr. Alan Gardiner's Home Thoughts on Language emboldens one to ask whether there is not room for a science of Idiomatology* as a sister to Semantics.
1919, H.A. Rose, “Comparative "Idiomatology"”, in Man, page 133If we were to identify the langue strictly with the object of linguistic description then one aspect of the problem of defining the langue would involve drawing the line between that aspect of the speakers’ knowledge of X which is relevant to a linguistic description of X and those aspects (the idiomatology) which are not.
1978 June 9, George W. Grace, “The Langue”, in Ethnolinguistic Notes, number 2
Origin
From idiomatic + -ology. Contemporary use is traced to George W. Grace in the unpublished 1977 paper "Language: An Ethnolinguistic Essay". However, the term had been coined at least twice previously in the same sense.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
idiomatology. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/idiomatology
“idiomatology.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/idiomatology. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “idiomatology,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/idiomatology.
Source: idiomatology on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.