commonplace

American  

[kom-uhn-pleys] / ˈkɒm ənˌpleɪs /

adjective

1. ordinary; undistinguished or uninteresting; without individuality.

   a commonplace person.

2. trite; hackneyed; platitudinous.

   a commonplace remark.

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noun

• commonplaces
  plural

1. a well-known, customary, or obvious remark; a trite or uninteresting saying.

   Synonyms:

   stereotype, platitude, bromide, cliché

2. anything common, ordinary, or uninteresting.

3. Archaic. a place or passage in a book or writing noted as important for reference or quotation.

commonplace British  

/ ˈkɒmənˌpleɪs /

adjective

1. ordinary; everyday

   commonplace duties

2. dull and obvious; trite

   commonplace prose

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noun

1. something dull and trite, esp a remark; platitude; truism

2. a passage in a book marked for inclusion in a commonplace book, etc

3. an ordinary or common thing

Synonym Usage

Commonplace, banal, hackneyed, stereotyped, trite describe words, remarks, and styles of expression that are lifeless and uninteresting. Commonplace characterizes thought that is dull, ordinary, and platitudinous: commonplace and boring. Something is banal that seems inane, insipid, and pointless: a heavy-handed and banal affirmation of the obvious. Hackneyed characterizes something that seems stale and worn out through overuse: a hackneyed comparison. Stereotyped emphasizes the fact that situations felt to be similar invariably call for the same thought in exactly the same form and the same words: so stereotyped as to seem automatic. Trite describes something that was originally striking and apt, but which has become so well-known and been so commonly used that all interest has been worn out of it: true but trite.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• commonplaceness
  noun
• uncommonplace
  adjective
• commonplacely
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• commonplaces
  plural

Etymology

Origin of commonplace

1525–35; translation of Latin locus commūnis, itself translation of Greek koinòs tópos

Explanation

Something commonplace is ordinary. It can also be something dull and unchallenging or tired and clichéd. Coffee shops in cities are commonplace, so are berets in Paris. You see them all over the place. Things that are common can be found all over the place — they're commonplace! The word is a literal translation of the Latin locus communis for "general topic." Commonplace things and behavior are ordinary. For example, a commonplace job is a boring, mind-numbing task. It’s humdrum and unglamorous. A commonplace word or saying is a cliché — it's so common that it becomes meaningless and annoying.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

commonplace commonplaces

This is a city where neighborhood displacement — whether by gentrification, government or natural disaster — is as commonplace and messy as the bloom of jacarandas.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026

Mr. Amodei et al. would do themselves and the country a service by explaining that commonplace principle to Washington.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026

Cuts of five hours or more have become commonplace.

From Barron's ● Sep. 12, 2026

His style of play across a 10-year international career was ahead of its time, much more in keeping with the batting now commonplace in modern white-ball cricket.

From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026

Instrument-specific music seems commonplace to us now, but it was a real novelty during this period, and one which was rapidly taken up by composers on mainland Europe.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall

Instead, her autobiography hides the real Spark in a tangle of commonplaces.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

Eliot’s “fragments I have shored against my ruins,” but came too close, for me, to what Saul Bellow’s fictional Herzog called “the commonplaces of the Wasteland outlook.”

From Washington Post ● Mar. 3, 2021

His arguments, a distressed John Quincy Adams wrote in his diary, consisted “altogether of the most hackneyed commonplaces of popular declamation, mingled up with panegyrics and invectives.”

From The New Yorker ● Oct. 21, 2019

His website proclaims his new book, “shattered the modern commonplaces of science, faith, and human nature while transforming and ennobling the mind and spirit of its readers.”

From Washington Times ● Mar. 26, 2018

The wise persuader starts from one or two commonplaces he knows he has in common with his audience—and, where possible, arrives at one too.

From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith

Related Words

• customary
• mundane
• normal
• obvious
• prevalent
• typical