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

But why commonplace “Candide” and “West Side Story,” when Bernstein wrote “Slava! A Political Overture,” for the NSO as tribute in 1977 to its Russian music director, Mstislav Rostropovich?

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026

But such incidents have become increasingly commonplace to the point of numbing us.

From Salon ● Aug. 6, 2026

Pressimone defended the practice as necessary and commonplace, Canty says.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026

Chinese companies already account for the vast majority of global humanoid deployments, but it may be years before they are commonplace in warehouses.

From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026

Appealing to authority—whether by quoting a commonplace or the words of a named source— always strengthens an argument.

From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith

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

“The Other Side of the Wind” is also, for better and for worse, uncannily prescient—possessed of passions that were rare at the time of its making but eventually became celebrated, then became commonplaces.

From The New Yorker ● Nov. 2, 2018

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

Any form of reasoning has to start from a set of premises, and in rhetoric those premises are very often commonplaces.

From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith

Related Words

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