Idiom dictionary

An idiom dictionary explains idiosyncratic stock phrases and metaphors in language. Typical English idiom dictionaries, e.g. that published by Longmans, define about 4000 phrases, e.g. "buy the farm", "hit the road", "canary in a coal mine". Of these, a tiny subset are very basic to the language, and qualify as conceptual metaphors without which English is quite hard to understand, e.g. "time as a substance", "time as a path", "love as war". These metaphors are often assumed in idioms, e.g. "battle of the sexes", "out of time".

An idiom dictionary always relies on a defining vocabulary of terms (Longman's uses 2000) which are used only in their simplest senses, to minimize the number of such basic conceptual metaphors and polymorphic word uses, and make definitions easier for someone unfamiliar with the language to comprehend.

Wikipedia serves, at present and in part, as an advanced idiom dictionary, as it includes definitions or explanatory histories of many stock phrases, metaphors, models and fictional characters. It does not, however, explain these strictly in terms of a simpler defining vocabulary, exploiting a rich English that would be incomprehensible to the usual audience of an idiom dictionary, children or students of English as a second language. 'There is a long-term goal to remove all dictionary functions from the wikipedia to the wiktionary - see [1]). It is unclear to what degree wiktionary can serve the idiom functions.'