Can you think of any words that are mainly used in a certain phrase?
People talk about looking in every nook and cranny. The word nook is sometimes used elsewhere, but have you ever heard cranny being used in any other way? There are other words like this, but I am having trouble remembering them.
The word iota is sort of like this. It always seems to be used in a negative sense, like not caring one iota. Nobody talks about adding an iota of wine to a recipe.
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How about disheveled,no one ever says just sheveled.
Well, I seldom see ‘Matilda’ without ‘waltzing’ in front of it.
High Water often goes along with Hell
And I have never seen ‘blithering’ by itself – usually it’s ‘blithering idiot’
Superstitious. No one says titious.
Easy peasy I can’t remember only peasy.
“Tucker” as in “best bib and tucker.”
Here is another example – the phrase wax and wane. Where else is wax used to indicate an increase?
@LostInParadise You don’t observe the waxing moon? Poets wax eloquent about it.
@zenvelo or when it gets cloudy and it starts to wane.
@janbb haven’t you ever been tuckered out?
“Cranny” is just not common in modern American English. I think it might be more common still in Britain.
“He’s got a stash squirreled away in some little cranny somewhere.”
(Without looking, I have a notion that it sounds like a word of Scottish origin to me.)
@LostInParadise Waxing gibbous. To wax eloquent. (Oh, @Zenvelo beat me to it.)
@elbanditoroso mentioned tuckered out. I would add that I used to often hear “plum tuckered out” meaning completely exhausted. I don’t think there’s another use of plum meaning completely.
I should add that tucker is often used in Australian English meaning food.
Jove. By Jove, by Jupiter, my God, this is the definition of an idiom.
1. : the choice of words and the way they are combined that is characteristic of a language.
2. : an expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but must be learned as a whole. the expression “give way,” meaning “retreat,” is an idiom.
“Tuckered out” comes from being tired after a social event where one is all dressed up, and women are wearing a tucker, and men are wearing a bib under their tuxedo jackets. When you are tuckered out, you are undoing all the constrictive clothing so you can relax.
Plumb (not plum) tuckered means so tired that one is ready to drop like a plumb bob.
These are old idioms that were immediately understandable by most people.
What does wax mean when someone waxes eloquent? Can you wax ineloquent?
How about dilly dally, can one just be dilly or dally?
You can be overwhelmed or underwhelmed, but no one says that they were whelmed. Like, it’s exactly what I expected. No more, no less. I was completely whelmed.
@SQUEEKY2 you can pick a dilly, but not a dally
“Moot point,” or “your point is moot.”
@gorillapaws I hear “moot” or “mooted” (without the word point) from time to time.
Somewhat different meaning, too. It means ‘raise’ (like an idea).
“The chairman mooted the idea of holding a discussion on the proposal”
Caddy corner? Maybe that doesn’t quite fit the Q.
@SQUEEKY2 Dishevled is from the French I think. For years I assumed it was Yiddish. It’s not the first word I assumed was Yiddish and found out it wasn’t.
There is no shevled that I know of in English.
It has been a while since I heard this phrase, but how about vim and vigor? Tell me you have heard vim used elsewhere.
Words like disheveled should be in a separate category – words that are formed as antonyms of non-existent words. Also included would be decapitate and defenestrate. There is no verb capitate meaning to provide someone with a head or verb fenestrate meaning to raise someone to window level.
@JLeslie It’s “catty-corner”, which derives from “cater corner” which came from the French “quatre” for four spots on one side of a die.
I don’t think I have ever seen a caboodle without the whole kit.
@zenvelo My caboodle doesn’t need a kit! Just sayin’
@zenvelo Thank you! I actually know that because I use both catty corner and kitty corner, which I realize it’s from the French, but as a kid I thought of it as cat as in meow. Lol. Not sure where my brain was when I wrote my answer.
But @Kardamom my youngest use to say I’m going to “Fro-UP” !
Not a phrase but here is no gruntled. Only disgruntled.
Hunky-dory and the heebie-jeebies
Or Hanky-Panky.
Rollie -Pollie
I did a Web search for hem and haw and found another good example – beck and call.
Is there anything that is unsung other than heroes?
@zenvelo but some of them have dead ringers
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