The are phrases whose meaning is not what you would get from combining its constituent words (i.e., they violate the Principle of compositionality).
- Some are entity names, e.g.,
- "weird science" is (usually) a movie, not a kind of science,
- "grand theft auto" is a specific kind of felony or a computer game, not stealing a big car
- Others are idioms, e.g.,
- "kick a bucket" or
- "pull a leg" or
- "break a leg"
- something else which escapes my mind at the moment…
What is the general term for this?
"Non-compositional phrase"?
The only other thing which comes to mind is mass-defective phrase 🙂
Best Answer
What you describe is referred to as a multiword expression (MWE) - one definition of which is idiosyncratic interpretations that cross word boundaries (or spaces). A fuller description (too detailed to be sensibly reproduced) can be found here.
Examples include: kick the bucket, throw to the lions.