idiomatic
adjective
id·i·o·mat·ic
ˌi-dē-ə-ˈma-tik 
1
: of, relating to, or conforming to idiom
2
: peculiar to a particular group, individual, or style
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The speech and writing of a native-born English-speaker may seem crude, uneducated, and illiterate, but will almost always be idiomatic—that is, a native speaker always sounds like a native speaker. For a language learner, speaking and writing idiomatically in another language is the greatest challenge. Even highly educated foreign learners—professors, scientists, doctors, etc.—rarely succeed in mastering the kind of idiomatic English spoken by an American 7th-grader.
Examples of idiomatic in a Sentence
the new teacher's idiomatic approach to dealing with special-needs students is already showing signs of success
Recent Examples on the Web
Grieve wanted to make Proust more idiomatic and sound up-to-date.
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Literary Hub, 7 Oct. 2025
But Wolfe’s good point, in his writing on architecture, was that there was an immense reservoir of idiomatic American style that deserved to be taken as seriously—or, more to the point, as joyfully—as any European art-school dogma.
—Adam Gopnik, New Yorker, 6 Sep. 2025
Those posts often highlight the overconfident way the AI Overview frames its idiomatic explanations and occasional problems with the model confabulating sources that don't exist.
—ArsTechnica, 29 Apr. 2025
The lines feel idiomatic—sometimes in translations there’s a kind of starchiness or stiffness to the language, but this feels utterly natural.
—The New Yorker, 29 Jan. 2025
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Literary Hub, 7 Oct. 2025
But Wolfe’s good point, in his writing on architecture, was that there was an immense reservoir of idiomatic American style that deserved to be taken as seriously—or, more to the point, as joyfully—as any European art-school dogma.
—Adam Gopnik, New Yorker, 6 Sep. 2025
Those posts often highlight the overconfident way the AI Overview frames its idiomatic explanations and occasional problems with the model confabulating sources that don't exist.
—ArsTechnica, 29 Apr. 2025
The lines feel idiomatic—sometimes in translations there’s a kind of starchiness or stiffness to the language, but this feels utterly natural.
—The New Yorker, 29 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for idiomatic
Cite this Entry
“Idiomatic.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idiomatic. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
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