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• garden-variety
  garden-variety

  adjective

  common, usual, or ordinary; unexceptional.
• garden variety
  garden variety

  Ordinary, common, as in I don't want anything special in a VCR—the garden variety will do. This term alludes to a common plant as opposed to a specially bred hybrid. [Colloquial; 1920]

garden-variety

American  

[gahr-dn-vuh-rahy-i-tee] / ˈgɑr dn vəˌraɪ ɪ ti /

adjective

1. common, usual, or ordinary; unexceptional.

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garden variety Idioms  

1. Ordinary, common, as in I don't want anything special in a VCR—the garden variety will do. This term alludes to a common plant as opposed to a specially bred hybrid. [Colloquial; 1920]

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Etymology

Origin of garden-variety

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

garden-variety garden variety

“For now this is a garden-variety sell-off,” he said.

From Barron's ● Mar. 9, 2026

Of course, more force than your typical garden-variety arrest warrant was required, hence the military aspect.

From MarketWatch ● Jan. 10, 2026

There’s no saying when the next major bear market will send Americans to the mattresses—maybe through the collapse of AI mania, or possibly just a garden-variety recession.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 17, 2025

But the theater’s ability to turn family dysfunction, be it alcoholism, Alzheimer’s or just garden-variety existential agony, into entertainment and instant illumination, has long been a staple of the American stage.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 28, 2025

As he approached the fiery grey apparition, he was fairly sure it was a garden-variety wraith - a lost soul who had died in pain.

From "Blood of Olympus" by Rick Riordan

The point is that the market could easily suffer a garden variety correction—a 10% drop, or more, from peaks.

From Barron's ● Jun. 24, 2026

This is not another garden variety Latin genre list, but a highlight reel of 2025 releases that showcases artists from Latin America and the diaspora.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 18, 2025

That means that a single federal fraud statute prohibits the most diabolical schemes along with the garden variety cons.

From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2023

They didn’t really view the battle flag “as insurrectionist or pro-slavery, but more as garden variety rebellion,” he said.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 8, 2023

It is a field rather than a garden variety; though the green pods are tender and well flavored.

From The Field and Garden Vegetables of America Containing Full Descriptions of Nearly Eleven Hundred Species and Varietes; With Directions for Propagation, Culture and Use. by Fearing Burr