Wiktionary

idiosyncratic

English edit

Etymology edit

From idiosyncrasy +‎ -ic.

Pronunciation edit

  • IPA(key): /ˌɪd.i.əʊ.sɪŋˈkræ.tɪk/, /-ˌsɪŋ-/
  • Rhymes: -ætɪk
  • Audio (US)(file)

Adjective edit

idiosyncratic (comparative more idiosyncratic, superlative most idiosyncratic)

  1. Peculiar to a specific individual; eccentric.
    • 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 9, in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde:
      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.
    • 1891, George MacDonald, chapter 12, in The Flight of the Shadow:
      It was no merely idiosyncratic experience, for the youth had the same: it was love!
    • 1982 April 26, Michael Walsh, “Music: A Fresh Falstaff in Los Angeles”, in Time:
      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.
    • 2020 September 1, Nicholas Barber, “Five stars for I'm Thinking of Ending Things”, in BBC‎[1]:
      I’m not saying that Kaufman’s film will be enshrined as a classic, as those Kubrick films are. It’s too idiosyncratic and demanding for that: many viewers will be thinking of ending it halfway through

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