What idioms are?
An idiom generally can be defined as an expression whose meaning do not refers to the literal definition or arrangement of its elements, expressing a figurative meaning, that can be grasped only through the common use of language and by people from a particular region or class. That means idioms draw their reference from everyday life with all its cultural and anthropological implications, that non-native speakers (or belonging to a different culture) may perceive them as nonsense. By a linguistical point of view, idioms and idiomatic phrases are interesting source of the so called “language in use” – or what Saussure defined as parole – since the meaning of an idiom cannot be predicted on the basis of the rules regulating the meaning or use of its parts, when they occur in isolation from one another, but their meaning derives from the extra-linguistic context. Idioms can be linguistically described and divided into several groups – just analysing its components and their semantic rela
