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commonplace. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
commonplace, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
commonplace in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
commonplace you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Alternative forms
Etymology
A calque of Latin locus commūnis, referring to a generally applicable literary passage, itself a calque of Ancient Greek κοινὸς τόπος (koinòs tópos).
Pronunciation
Adjective
commonplace (comparative more commonplace, superlative most commonplace)
- Ordinary; not having any remarkable characteristics.
- Synonyms: routine, undistinguished, unexceptional; see also Thesaurus:hackneyed
- Antonyms: distinguished, inimitable, unique
1824, Sir Walter Scott, chapter 7, in St. Ronan's Well:"This Mr. Tyrrel," she said, in a tone of authoritative decision, "seems after all a very ordinary sort of person, quite a commonplace man."
1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned.
1911, Joseph Conrad, chapter 1, in Under Western Eyes:I could get hold of nothing but of some commonplace phrases, those futile phrases that give the measure of our impotence before each other's trials.
Translations
ordinary
- Afrikaans: alledaags, gewoon (af)
- Bulgarian: обикнове́н (bg) (obiknovén), всекидне́вен (bg) (vsekidnéven)
- Chinese:
- Mandarin: please add this translation if you can
- Finnish: tavallinen (fi), tavanomainen (fi)
- French: ordinaire (fr), banal (fr)
- German: alltäglich (de), banal (de), gang und gäbe (de), gewöhnlich (de), abgedroschen (de), normal (de), fade (de)
- Greek: κοινός (el) m (koinós), τετριμμένος (el) m (tetrimménos)
- Hungarian: közönséges (hu), mindennapos (hu), szokványos (hu), megszokott (hu)
- Italian: ordinario (it), banale (it)
- Japanese: ありきたりの (ja) (arikitari no), ありふれた (arifureta), 平凡な (ja) (heibon na), 月並みの (tsukinami no)
- Khmer: please add this translation if you can
- Korean: please add this translation if you can
- Polish: pospolity (pl), powszechny (pl)
- Portuguese: corriqueiro (pt), banal (pt), prosaico (pt) m, comum (pt), rotineiro (pt) m
- Romanian: banal (ro) m, ordinar (ro) m
- Russian: обыкнове́нный (ru) (obyknovénnyj), обы́чный (ru) (obýčnyj), обы́денный (ru) (obýdennyj), бана́льный (ru) (banálʹnyj)
- Spanish: común (es), común y corriente
- Thai: please add this translation if you can
- Turkish: alelâde (tr), basmakalıp (tr), olağan (tr), sıradan (tr)
- Vietnamese: please add this translation if you can
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Noun
commonplace (plural commonplaces)
- A platitude or cliché.
1899, Stephen Crane, chapter 17, in Active Service:Finally he began to mutter some commonplaces which meant nothing particularly.
1910, Elinor Glyn, chapter 4, in His Hour:And something angered Tamara in the way the Prince assisted in all this, out-commonplacing her friend in commonplaces with the suavest politeness.
- Something that is ordinary; something commonly done or occurring.
1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. , volume III, London: Richard Bentley, , (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 137:It is odd how easily the common-places of morality or of sentiment glide off in conversation. Well, they are "exceedingly helpful," and so Lord Avonleigh found them.
1891 , London:
,
page 248, column 1:
"MY dear fellow," said Sherlock Holmes, as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker-street, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. […]"
1988 December 19, William Styron, “Why Primo Levi Need Not Have Died”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:The smallest commonplace of domestic life, so amiable to the healthy mind, lacerates like a blade.
2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 4:Collecting data via transects is a commonplace in biology[.]
- A memorandum; something to be frequently consulted or referred to.
- A commonplace book.
Translations
platitude or cliché
- Bulgarian: бана́лност (bg) f (banálnost)
- Dutch: gemeenplaats (nl) m
- Finnish: latteus (fi), klisee (fi)
- French: lieu commun (fr) m
- German: Gemeinplatz (de) m, Allgemeinplatz (de) m, Plattitüde (de) f, Floskel (de) f, Binsenweisheit (de) f, Binsenwahrheit (de) f
- Greek: κοινοτοπία (el) f (koinotopía)
- Hungarian: közhely (hu)
- Italian: luogo comune (it) m
- Polish: frazes (pl) m
- Portuguese: lugar-comum m, chavão (pt) m
- Romanian: loc comun (ro) n
- Russian: клише (ru) n (kliše)
- Spanish: lugar común m, tópico (es) m, cliché (es) m, clisé (es) m, perogrullada (es) f
- Swedish: klyscha (sv) c, plattityd (sv) c, floskel (sv) c
- Turkish: basmakalıp (tr)
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something that is ordinary
Verb
commonplace (third-person singular simple present commonplaces, present participle commonplacing, simple past and past participle commonplaced)
- To make a commonplace book.
- To enter in a commonplace book, or to reduce to general heads.
1711, Henry Felton, Dissertation on Reading the Classics:I do not apprehend any difficulty in collecting and commonplacing an universal history from the […] historians.
- (obsolete) To utter commonplaces; to indulge in platitudes.
1910, Elinor Glyn, chapter 4, in His Hour:And something angered Tamara in the way the Prince assisted in all this, out-commonplacing her friend in commonplaces with the suavest politeness.
- c. January 1620, Francis Bacon, letter to the King
For the good that comes of particular and select committees and commissions, I need not commonplace.
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