SOLECISM • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Solecism

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noun

Solecism n.

An impropriety or incongruity of language in the combination of words or parts of a sentence; esp., deviation from the idiom of a language or from the rules of syntax. "A barbarism may be in one word; a solecism must be of more."

Any inconsistency, unfitness, absurdity, or impropriety, as in deeds or manners. "Caesar, by dismissing his guards and retaining his power, committed a dangerous solecism in politics." "The idea of having committed the slightest solecism in politeness was agony to him."

Synonyms: Barbarism; impropriety; absurdity.

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Etymology of 'Solecism'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Solecism" Quotes from Famous Books

... gathered for battle. One sporting character emitted an appalling "View Halloo" and there were a few "Yoicks" and "Gone Aways" to support his little solecism. Lucille, rushing to Dam, encountered the fleeing reptile and with a neat stroke of ...

— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... guilty to the determined use of acknowledged idioms and common elliptical expressions. I am not sure that the critics in question know the one from the other, that is, can distinguish any medium between formal pedantry and the most barbarous solecism. As an author I endeavour to employ plain words and popular modes of construction, as, were I a chapman and dealer, I ...

— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... [Footnote 9: With this solecism in the printed Flores Historiarum I find that a MS. in the Chetham Library agrees, the abbreviative mark used in the Hundred Rolls of Edward I. for the terminations us and er having ...

— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various

... of thought, leave a great gap between. Montesquieu said, he often lost an idea before he could find words for it: yet he dictated, by way of saving time, to an amanuensis. This last is, in my opinion, a vile method, and a solecism in authorship. Horne Tooke, among other paradoxes, used to maintain, that no one could write a good style who was not in the habit of talking and hearing the sound of his own voice. He might as well have said that no one could ...

— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... time. Writing "not to gratify the dull few, whose greatest pleasure is to see what the author exactly says," but "to give a poem that might live in the English language," Mickle puts up a vigorous defense of his methods. "Literal translation of poetry," he insists, "is a solecism. You may construe your author, indeed, but if with some translators you boast that you have left your author to speak for himself, that you have neither added nor diminished, you have in reality grossly abused him, and deceived yourself. Your literal translations can have no claim to the ...

— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos

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