idiosyncracy

idiosyncracy
\ \ [17] Greek idios meant ‘of a particular person, personal, private, own’.
\ \ Among the words it has contributed to English are idiom [16] (etymologically ‘one’s own particular way of speaking’), idiot, and idiosyncracy. This was a compound formed in Greek with súgkrāsis, itself a compound noun made up of súntogether’ and krāsismixture’ (a relative of English crater). Súgkrāsis originally meant literally ‘mixture’, but it was later used metaphorically for ‘mixture of personal characteristics, temperament’, and so idiosúgkrāsis was ‘one’s own particular mix of traits’.
\ \ Cf.IDIOM, IDIOT

Word origins - 2ed. . 2005.

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