The article proposes an innovative experience of the authors of the work on the dictionary "Phraseology in Russian poetry" and discusses the problem of differentiation of individual and General in this dictionary. Based on a detailed classification of phraseology developed by the compilers of the dictionary, the authors show different lexicographical possibility of such distinction. Particularly difficult for the vocabulary descriptions are cases of contamination and the occasional use of phraseology, on which the article is focused on. The regulator of many such transformations remains the inner form of phraseology, that is why the development of the historical and etymological commentaries becomes one of the most important tasks of the development of entries.