banal
Americanadjective
adjective
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012Related Words
See commonplace.
Other Word Forms
- banality noun
- banally adverb
Etymology
Origin of banal
First recorded in 1745–55; from French, Old French: “pertaining to a ban”; equivalent to ban 2 + -al 1
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.
Yes, he was 88, but the Czech-born, British playwright, the true 20th century heir to Oscar Wilde, would never have arranged things so banally.
From Los Angeles Times
Even so, the kaleidoscope of tales and vignettes, and the blurring of the banal with the macabre, produces a dusky, dreamlike atmosphere that envelopes one’s thoughts like a fine mist.
It doesn’t help that Ms. Doucet’s prose, replete with stock expressions, is tiresomely banal.
Yet in a manner almost impossible to describe, he stood above or outside his banal and dull-witted persona.
From Salon
There seemed to be something basic or banal about whiling away hours in the gym.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
