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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

... [110] This solecism is found in the Irish as well as in the Scottish Gaelic translation. The Manks translation has avoided it. In the Irish version and in the Scottish Gaelic version of 1767, a similar instance occurs in Acts, ii. 20, an la mor ...

— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart

... any more intimate conversation, and Richard had certainly committed a solecism in giving Cicely's letter the precedence over the Earl's. The Queen, however, had recalled her caution, and inquired for the health of the Lord and Lady, and, with a certain sarcasm on her lips, trusted that the peace ...

— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... introduced in the "Conquest of Granada," our author had previously introduced the Moors bowing to the image of Jupiter; a gross solecism, hardly more pardonable, as Langbaine remarks, than the introduction of a pistol in the hand of Demetrius, a successor of Alexander the Great, which Dryden has ...

— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... Jesus direct our way unto you,' where the petition is presented to both, and where both are supposed to be operative in the answer. And more than that, the word 'direct,' following upon this plural subject, is itself a singular verb. Could language more completely express than that grammatical solecism does, the deep truth of the true and proper divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? There is nothing in any part of Scripture more emphatic and more lofty in its unfaltering proclamation of that fundamental truth of the Gospel than this ...

— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... for no help, and employ no other restoratives than fond words and caresses. Under this treatment, nevertheless, she recovered perhaps as quickly as under any which the faculty might have prescribed. She was, still, however, much more distressed than mere consciousness of the grave solecism she had committed could explain. But I had no other clue to her trouble, and could only hope that in repudiating this she would explain its ...

— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

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