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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

At this point, it was a garden-variety story of influence peddling.

From Slate ● Jul. 8, 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

“If this goes lower, will this feel like a garden variety pullback? Heck no, not with these headlines,” he said.

From Barron's ● Mar. 30, 2026

He continues, during these early months in office, to focus on a garden variety of municipal issues: housing, traffic, making local government more accessible and responsive.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2025

In other words, it was never intended to be nor has it ever been used as a power to deport people without due process for garden variety criminal activity — or no crime at all.

From Salon ● Mar. 17, 2025

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

The water-cress, growing spontaneously by rills and springs, is a kind of wild peppergrass, and is by some persons more esteemed than the garden variety.

From Soil Culture by Walden, J. H.