turn of phrase
noun
Simple meaning
A distinctive spoken or written expression.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
turnuhvfrayzSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtɝnəvfɹeɪz
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A distinctive spoken or written expression
uncountable
A distinctive way of wording things, a distinctive way of writing or speaking.
countable
An expression which is worded in a distinctive way, especially one which is particularly memorable or artful.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: A distinctive spoken or written expression
Used this way, turn of phrase is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.