idiosyncratic

English

Etymology

From idiosyncrasy +‎ -ic. By surface analysis, idio- +‎ syn- +‎ -cratic.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌɪd.i.əʊ.sɪŋˈkɹæt.ɪk/, /-ˌsɪŋ-/
• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˌɪd.i.oʊ.sɪŋˈkɹæt.ɪk/, [ˌɪd.i.oʊ.sɪŋˈkɹæɾ.ɪk], /-ˌsɪŋ-/

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• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˌɪd.i.əʉ.sɪŋˈkɹæt.ɪk/, [ˌɪd.i.əʉ.sɪŋˈkɹæɾ.ɪk], /-ˌsɪŋ-/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˌəd.i.ɐʉ.səŋˈkɹɛt.ək/, [ˌəd.i.ɐʉ.səŋˈkɹɛɾ.ək], /-ˌsəŋ-/
• Rhymes: -ætɪk

Adjective

idiosyncratic (comparative more idiosyncratic, superlative most idiosyncratic)

1. Peculiar to a specific individual; eccentric.
   • 1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC:

     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^[1]:

     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^[2], archived from the original on 21 October 2010:

     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^[3]:

     I’m not saying that [Charlie] Kaufman’s film will be enshrined as a classic, as those [Stanley] Kubrick films are. It’s too idiosyncratic and demanding for that: many viewers will be thinking of ending it halfway through

   • 2021 July 4, Jonathan Romney, “‘I want to make people laugh’: Quentin Dupieux, the fun auteur of French cinema”, in The Observer‎^[4], →ISSN, archived from the original on 16 March 2022:

     The name “Quentin” clearly operates as a lucky charm if you’re an idiosyncratic film-maker, especially if you deal with sudden death, craziness and Z-movie Americana.

Derived terms

• idiosyncratical
• idiosyncratically
• idiosyncraticity
• idiosyncratic reaction
• nonidiosyncratic
• unidiosyncratic

Related terms

• idiosyncrasy

Translations

peculiar to a specific individual

• Armenian: իդիոսինկրատիկ (idiosinkratik)
• Catalan: idiosincràtic
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 獨特的 / 独特的 (dútè de), 特異的 / 特异的 (tèyì de)

• Czech: osobitý (cs) m, specifický (cs) m, výstřední (cs), charakteristický (cs) m
• Dutch: eigenzinnig (nl), eigenaardig (nl), idiosyncratisch (nl), karakteristiek (nl)
• Estonian: idiosünkraatiline, isikuomane
• Finnish: omaperäinen (fi), omalaatuinen (fi)
• French: singulier (fr) m, particulier (fr) m, idiosyncratique (fr), idiosyncrasique (fr)
• German: eigenartig (de), eigentümlich (de), spezifisch (de), idiosynkratisch (de)
• Hungarian: sajátos (hu)
• Italian: idiosincrasico, idiosincratico
• Kazakh: ерекше (erekşe)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: idiosynkratisk

• Polish: specyficzny (pl) m
• Portuguese: idiossincrásico (pt), idiossincrático (pt)
• Romanian: idiosincratic, idiosincrazic
• Russian: персона́льный (ru) (personálʹnyj), своеобразный (ru) (svojeobraznyj), уникальный (ru) (unikalʹnyj), характерный (ru) (xarakternyj), отличительный (ru) (otličitelʹnyj)
• Scottish Gaelic: sònraichte
• Serbo-Croatian: idiosinkratičan, specifičan (sh), karakterističan (sh)
• Spanish: idiosincrásico, idiosincrático
• Swedish: idiosynkratisk (sv), säregen (sv), egenartad (sv)

Further reading

• “idiosyncratic”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.