COMMONPLACE - Definition

Meaning of COMMONPLACE

Pronunciation:		'kâmun`pleys
WordNet Dictionary

	Definition:	[n] a trite or obvious remark [adj] not challenging; dull and lacking excitement; "an unglamorous job greasing engines" [adj] obvious and dull; "trivial conversation"; "commonplace prose" [adj] completely ordinary and unremarkable; "air travel has now become commonplace"; "commonplace everyday activities" [adj] repeated too often; overfamiliar through overuse; "bromidic sermons"; "his remarks were trite and commonplace"; "hackneyed phrases"; "a stock answer"; "repeating threadbare jokes"; "parroting some timeworn axiom"; "the trite metaphor `hard as nails'"

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	Synonyms:	banal, banality, bromide, cliche, hackneyed, humdrum, ordinary, platitude, prosaic, shopworn, stock(a), threadbare, timeworn, tired, trite, trivial, unexciting, unglamorous, unglamourous, unoriginal, well-worn

	See Also:	comment, remark, truism

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

	Definition:	\Com"monplace`\, a. Common; ordinary; trite; as, a commonplace person, or observation. \Com"monplace`\, n. 1. An idea or expression wanting originality or interest; a trite or customary remark; a platitude. 2. A memorandum; something to be frequently consulted or referred to. Whatever, in my reading, occurs concerning this our fellow creature, I do never fail to set it down by way of commonplace. --Swift. {Commonplace book}, a book in which records are made of things to be remembered. \Com"monplace`\, v. t. To enter in a commonplace book, or to reduce to general heads. --Felton. \Com"monplace`\, v. i. To utter commonplaces; to indulge in platitudes. [Obs.] --Bacon.

Thesaurus Terms

	Related Terms:	abstraction, accustomed, ascetic, Attic, austere, average, Babbittish, back-number, bald, banal, banality, bare, baseborn, below the salt, bewhiskered, bourgeois, bromide, bromidic, campy, candid, chaste, chestnut, classic, classical, cliche, cliched, cockney, common, commonly known, commonplace expression, conventional, corn, corny, current, customary, cut-and-dried, direct, dry, dull, everyday, fade, familiar, familiar tune, flat, frank, fusty, garden, garden-variety, general, general idea, generalization, generalized proposition, glittering generality, habitual, hackney, hackneyed, hackneyed expression, hackneyed saying, high-camp, homely, homespun, household, humble, humdrum, inanity, insipid, kitschy, lean, lieu commun, locus communis, low, lowborn, lowbred, low-camp, lowly, matter-of-fact, mean, middle-class, moth-eaten, mundane, musty, natural, neat, no great shakes, nonclerical, nondescript, normal, normative, notorious, old hat, old joke, old saw, old song, old story, open, ordinary, overworked, pedestrian, Philistine, plain, plain-speaking, plain-spoken, plastic, platitude, platitudinous, plebeian, poetryless, pop, popular, predominating, prescriptive, prevailing, prevalent, prosaic, prosaicism, prosaism, prose, prosing, prosy, proverbial, public, pure, pure and simple, regular, regulation, reiteration, retold story, rubber stamp, rude, run-of-mine, run-of-the-mill, rustic, set, severe, shabby-genteel, shallowness, shibboleth, shopworn, simple, simple-speaking, sober, spare, Spartan, square, stale, standard, stark, stereotype, stereotyped, stereotyped saying, stock, straightforward, suburban, sweeping statement, tag, talked-about, talked-of, third-estate, threadbare, timeworn, tired, tired cliche, tiresome, trite, trite saying, triteness, triticism, truism, truistic, twice-told tale, typical, unadorned, unaffected, unembellished, uneventful, unexceptional, ungenteel, unidealistic, unimaginative, unimpassioned, universal, universally admitted, universally recognized, unnoteworthy, unoriginal, unpoetic, unpoetical, unremarkable, unromantic, unspectacular, unvarnished, usual, vapid, vernacular, vulgar, warmed-over, well-kenned, well-known, well-recognized, well-understood, well-worn, widely known, wishy-washiness, wonted, workaday, workday, worn, worn thin, worn-out

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