commonplace
adjective
ordinary; undistinguished or uninteresting; without individuality.
commonplaces
-
pluralof commonplace.plural
The grammatical form denoting more than one person, place, thing, or idea.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But it is notable that Mr. Bhattacharya lays no more emphasis on these events than on the commonplaces of Charu’s everyday work life.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 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
But Eratosthenes was a scientist, and his musings on these commonplaces changed the world; in a way, they made the world.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
