VII TAMIL IDIOMS BASED ON THE NUMERAL “ONE” — A MICRO-STUDY I . The humble aim of this brief paper is just to assemble, analyse and appreciate significant Tamil idioms based on the numeral-‘One'. As such we need not worry here very much about all the studies on the definition, division and description of idioms in general. Bloomfield (1935),” Gray (1939)* Hockett (1958)*, Hall (1964)*, Wallwork (1969)” and others have written at varied lengths about idioms. Dictionaries and Encyclopaedias also have offered their own definitions and descriptions. A select few of them are as hereunder: A. The Oxford English Dictionary (1970) Idiom From L. idiome, Gr...... peculiarity, property, peculiar phrascology. 3. A form of expression, grammatical construction, phrase, etc., peculiarity of phraseology approve by the usage of a language, and often having a signification other than its grammatical or logical one. . B. The Random House Dictionary of the English language (College edition)—Indian edition (1975) - 1. an expresssion whose meaning cannot be derived from its constituent elements, as Kick the bucket in the sense of ‘todie'. 3. a construction or expression peculiar to a language. C. A Dictionary of linguistics—Mario A. Pei & Frank Gaynor (1954)
