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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

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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

Colombian writer-director Simón Mesa Soto’s acutely observed Cannes-recognized “A Poet” lays bare that torment with the tale of a has-been writer for whom exquisite suffering has curdled into garden-variety middle-age failure.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 30, 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

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 index’s drawdown isn’t even close to a garden variety “correction,” or a 10% or greater drop.

From Barron's ● Mar. 12, 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

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 comes into use nearly ten days in advance of the Early Cluster, and is the earliest garden variety now cultivated.

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

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