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there are various versions according to different dictionaries and scholars. I picked out some of those definitions from some authoritative dictionaries as follows:
(1) An idiom is an expression which functions as a single unit and whose meaning cannot be worded out from its separate parts (Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics, 1985) and (2) An idiom is a phrase, construction or expression that is recognized as a unit in the usage of a given language and either differs from the usual syntactic patterns or has a meaning that differs from the literal meaning of its parts taken together. (Webster’s New World College Dictionary 3rd Edition, 1996)
Some experts, who have been engaged in the study of idioms for many years, also have opinions of the definition of idioms.
(1) Weinreich held the view that a phraseological unit involving at least two polysemous constituents, and in which there is a reciprocal contextual selection of subsenses will be called and idiom.
(2) Schweigert and Moates have the idea that idioms are common expressions used in colloquial speech with accepted, figurative meanings that differ from their present-day literal meanings. These above are from dictionaries and experts or scholars. To sum up, we may come to the conclusion that idioms are those concise and incisive set phrase or short sentences, which mean something different from the literal meaning of the individual words, refined from people’s long-term employment, whose elements cannot be changed at random with simple words producing profound truth, thus widely spread among the common people.
II. Origins of Idioms
The formation of idioms is on intimate terms with the culture of the nation which its language relies on. In a sense, the culture gives birth to the idioms. On the contrary, the idioms reflect all the features of the culture. Each nation has its own national culture which owns a distinctive style and tradition that come into being in the course of their work and life, including history, language, custom, life style, ways of thinking, and so on . Idioms, a kind of language form used by the people for a very long time, to a great extent, rely more on the specific social cultural connotations than the common words.
Idioms, having an extremely strong color of a nation are one of the marks differentiating one language from another.
Thus, the origin of the idioms may be quite varied.
(1) The Experience of the Common People
For thousands of years, people drew lessons and experience from their daily life, and then wrote them down to tell their offspring what they had got from their experiences. As a result, most of the idioms could invariably mirror almost everything related to the life of the common people. Take those reflecting the geographic environment of people’s inhabitations as example, Britain is a country with small land area but a long coast line; so many English idioms are relevant to the ocean. People in Britain always compare fish to the people. For example, they use ‘cold fish’ to describe a person who is indifferent to something and ‘feel like a fish out of water’ to express a feeling that is uncomfortable and unnatural.
People always wrote down the lessons they got from their experience, just as the idiom ‘who has never tasted bitter knows not what is sweet’ telling the people if you don’t undergo hardships, you will never know what happiness is.
At the beginning of human society, owing to the l