oh-BLEEK
His oblique comments about the merger made everyone uneasy.
Fun Fact
In geometry, an oblique line is one that is angled—not perpendicular or parallel. In conversation, it works the same way: someone being oblique is avoiding direct language. Politicians, poets, and diplomats often speak obliquely to suggest things without stating them outright.
id-ee-oh-sin-KRAT-ik
(adjective) Relating to a distinctive habit, mannerism, or characteristic peculiar to an individual.
Her idiosyncratic habit of color-coding every notebook she owned was odd to others but essential to her.
Idiosyncratic traces back to the Greek idiosynkrasia, a combination of idios (“one’s own”), syn (“together”), and krasis (“mixture” or “temperament”). The word was originally used in medicine to describe a patient’s unique physical constitution or reaction to substances — a blend of qualities belonging only to that individual.
Fun Fact
Idiosyncrasies are the fingerprints of personality — and they’ve long fascinated psychologists and writers alike. Novelists in particular rely on idiosyncratic details to bring characters to life: think of Sherlock Holmes’s obsessive violin-playing at odd hours, or Adrian Monk’s compulsive straightening of picture frames. Research in behavioral psychology suggests that our quirks often form in childhood and become so automatic we’re completely unaware of them — which is why the people around us usually notice our idiosyncrasies long before we do.
Today's Word Idiosyncratic id-ee-oh-sin-KRAT-ik Definition (adjective) Relating to a distinctive...
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