banality

English

Etymology

From French banalité, from banal, equivalent to banal +‎ -ity.

Pronunciation

• enPR: bənăl'ĭti, IPA^(key): /bəˈnælɪti/
• Rhymes: -ælɪti
• enPR: bānăl'ĭti, IPA^(key): /beɪˈnælɪti/
• Rhymes: -ælɪti

Noun

banality (countable and uncountable, plural banalities)

1. (uncountable) The quality of being banal.

   Synonym: (partial) bathos

   • 1997, Edward S. Herman, Triumph of the Market: Essays on Economics, Politics, and the Media, Black Rose Books Ltd., →ISBN, page 97:

     The concept of the banality of evil came into prominence following the publication of Hannah Arendt's 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, which was based on the trial of Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem.

2. (countable) Something which is banal.
3. (rare, historical) A feudal right or obligation, especially the obligation for a peasant to grind grain at the lord's mill, or the profits accruing from such rights.
   • 1892, William Klapp Williams, The Dawn of Italian Independence: Italy from the Congress of Vienna, 1814, to the Fall of Venice, 1849, volume 1, page 176:

     The law of banality, one of the most oppressive products of feudalism, was revived for the advantage of the nobility.

   • 1984, Sheldon J. Watts, A Social History of Western Europe, 1450–1720: Tensions and Solidarities among Rural People, page 106:

     Other banalities included the lord's exclusive right to hunt over the land, his monopoly over fishing, and his right to keep the dove-cote whose feathery occupants ate a peasant's standing crops.

   • 1986, Pierre Goubert, translated by Ian Patterson, The French Peasantry in the Seventeenth Century, page 218:

     In fact corvées, champarts, and rights of banality not only continued but had been increased in the course of the seventeenth century.

Related terms

• banal

Translations

Further reading

• “banality”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “banality”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.