SYNONYMS AND RELATED EXPRESSIONS
idiosyncrasy
noun
A distinctive habit or feature of an individual or thing.
Local English device voice, when available. This is not a recorded dictionary pronunciation.
Distinctive personal feature
Closest synonyms
Related words and expressions
These extend or explain the idea and may require a different sentence structure.
Usage distinction
Return to topA foible is a small weakness; an idiosyncrasy can be neutral or endearing.
RELATED FORMS, ONE FEATURED ENTRY
The idiosyncratic family
idiosyncrasy is grouped under idiosyncratic in the main dictionaries. This form keeps its meaning and previous study record.
idiosyncraticadjective
Distinctive of a particular person or thing, often in an unusual way.
Distinctive to an individual
Closest synonyms
Related expressions
Her idiosyncratic filing system made perfect sense to her but puzzled the other volunteers.
The artist's idiosyncratic habit of hiding a striped cup in every painting gave viewers a second detail to notice.
CHECK THE MEANING IN CONTEXT
See idiosyncrasy in use
One idiosyncrasy of the old clock was its uneven chime.
One idiosyncrasy of Niko's design notebooks was that every project began with a question written upside down at the bottom of the page.
Compare an alternative with the original word in each passage. Shared meanings do not make every pair interchangeable.
Synonym reference scope and sources
The groups distinguish the senses selected for this study entry. Closest synonyms and broader related expressions have separate labels. The listed sources support lexical selection; not every phrase is a direct quotation from a source.
How the synonym reference was prepared / WordNet 3.0 license