set phrase

noun

Etymology

From set + phrase.

  1. derived from φράσις
  2. borrowed from phrasis
  3. compounded as set phrase — “set + phrase

Definitions

  1. An established expression whose wording is subject to little or no variation, and which…

    An established expression whose wording is subject to little or no variation, and which may or may not be idiomatic.

    • Bally remarks in passing, as Hall does not, that the inversion in toujours est-il que is part of a set phrase and hence invariable.
    • American courts sometimes use cherry in place of apple, but the latter fruit vastly predominates. The American version is that rare set phrase that is not so well set, variations on the phrase being more common than the main phrase itself.
  2. An idiomatic expression in general.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for set phrase. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA