commonplace

• common place (obsolete)
• common-place (archaic)

A calque of Latin locus commūnis, referring to a generally applicable literary passage, itself a calque of Ancient Greek κοινὸς τόπος (koinòs tópos).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑmənˌpleɪs/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒmənˌpleɪs/

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• Hyphenation: com‧mon‧place

commonplace (comparative more commonplace, superlative most commonplace)

1. Ordinary; not having any remarkable characteristics.

   Synonyms: routine, undistinguished, unexceptional, quotidian; 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.

   • 2025 July 9, Frank Mueller, “Protecting the railway from new and existing dangers”, in RAIL, number 1039, page 62:

     In the old days, hopping onto the platform from a not-yet-stopped train was a commonplace stunt for daily commuters in a hurry.

commonplace (plural commonplaces)

1. 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.

2. Something that is ordinary; something commonly done or occurring.
   • 1834, L E L, chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara.  In Three Volumes.">…], 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 , A Conan Doyle, “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Adventure III.—A Case of Identity.”, in Geo Newnes, editor, The Strand Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly, volume II (July to December), number , 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. "

   • 1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 150:

     And, placed discreetly among these commonplaces, a few pieces of genuine quality, bizarrely distinguished by craftsmanship from the vulgar products of the machine.

   • 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

3. A memorandum; something to be frequently consulted or referred to.
   • 1710, Jonathan Swift, A Discourse concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit:

     Whatever, in my reading, occurs concerning this our fellow creature, I do never fail to set it down by way of common-place.

4. A commonplace book.

commonplace (third-person singular simple present commonplaces, present participle commonplacing, simple past and past participle commonplaced)

1. To make a commonplace book.
2. 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.

3. (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.

• commonplace book