What is a programming idiom?

Question

I see the phrase \"programming idiom\" thrown around as if it is commonly understood. Yet, in search results and stackoverflow I see everything...

From micro:

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Answer 1

Idiom is a term from linguistics. It is a group of words that do not literally mean what the say. For example saying someone is "under the weather" when they are not feeling well. That particular phrase came from sailors talking about passengers, seasick passengers would go below the "weather" decks where the ships motion was less. But most of us are not sailors and don't know the literal meaning of the phrase.

In programming many, even most of the instructions are not understood by the general public even though they are English words. for example "for loop". While they make sense to programmers, they don't to most other people.