English-language examples
* ''ado'', as in " without further ado" or " with no further ado" or " much ado about nothing", although the homologous form "to-do" remains attested ("make a to-do", "a big to-do", etc.) * ''amok'', as in "run amok" * ''bandy'', as in " bandy about" or " bandy-legged" * ''bated'', as in " wait with bated breath", although the derived term "abate" remains in non-idiom-specific use * ''beck'', as in " at one's beck and call", although the verb form "beckon" is still used in non-idiom-specific use * ''bide'', as in "bide your time" * ''champing'', as in " champing at the bit", where "champ" is an obsolete precursor to "chomp", in current use * ''coign'', as in " coign of vantage" * ''deserts'', as in " just deserts", although singular "desert" in the sense of "state of deserving" occurs in nonidiom-specific contexts including law and philosophy. "Dessert" is a French loanword, meaning "removing what has been served," and has only a distant etymological connection. * ''dint'', as in " by dint of" * ''dudgeon'', as in " in high dudgeon" * ''eke'', as in " eke out" * ''fettle'', as in " in fine fettle", although the verb, 'to fettle', remains in specialized use in metal casting. * ''fro'', as in " to and fro" * ''goodly'', as in "goodly number" * ''helter skelter'', as in "scattered helter-skelter about the office", Middle English to hasten * ''inclement'', as in "inclement weather” * ''jetsam'', as in " flotsam and jetsam", except in legal contexts (especially admiralty, property, and international law) * ''kith'', as in " kith and kin" * ''lam'', as in “on the lam” * ''lo'', as in " lo and behold" * ''loggerheads'' as in " at loggerheads" or loggerhead turtle * ''muchness'' as in " much of a muchness" * ''ne'er'', as in " ne'er-do-well" * ''shebang'', as in " the whole shebang", although the word is now used as an unrelated common noun in programmers' jargon. * ''shrive'', preserved only in inflected forms occurring only as part of fixed phrases: 'shrift' in " short shrift" and 'shrove' in " Shrove Tuesday" * ''span'' and ''spick'', as in " spick and span" * ''turpitude'', as in " moral turpitude" * ''vim'', as in " vim and vigor", though preserved as the name of a scouring powder * ''wedlock'', as in " out of wedlock" * ''wend'', as in "wend your way", although its former past tense "went" is still in use as the past tense of "to go" * ''yore'', as in " of yore", usually "days of yore""Born fossils"
These words were formed from other languages, by elision, or by mincing of other fixed phrases. * ''caboodle'', as in " kit and caboodle" (evolved from "kit and boodle", itself a fixed phrase borrowed as a unit from Dutch ) * ''druthers'', as in " if I had my druthers..." (formed by elision from "would rather" and never occurring outside this phrase to begin with) * ''tarnation'', as in " what in tarnation...?" (evolved in the context of fixed phrases formed by mincing of previously fixed phrases that include the term "damnation") * ''nother'', as in " a whole nother..." (fixed phrase formed by rebracketing ''another'' as ''a nother'', then inserting ''whole'' for emphasis; almost never occurs outside this phrase)See also
* Bound morpheme * Collocation — tendency of one word to occur near another * Cranberry morpheme — morpheme which has no independent meaning in a lexeme * Fossilization (linguistics) * Irreversible binomialReferences
{{Reflist Historical linguistics Lists of English words Vocabulary Archaic words and phrases Idioms