nothing new under the sun

Cultural  

1. A phrase adapted from the Book of Ecclesiastes; the author complains frequently in the book about the monotony of life. The entire passage reads, “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”

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nothing new under the sun Idioms  

1. Everything has been seen before, as in Those designs take me back to the 1950s—there really is nothing new under the sun. This world-weary view was already expressed in 1382 in the Bible translation attributed to John Wycliffe's followers: “No thing under the sun is new” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

nothing new under the sun

But while one can complain that there’s nothing new under the sun, a singer can tackle a song you’ve heard a hundred times and make it into something fresh.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 30, 2026

As the Book of Ecclesiastes tells us, there was nothing new under the sun.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2025

"There is nothing new under the sun compared to the previous editions," she said.

From BBC ● May 30, 2025

These days, he rejects the notion that his art should have to mean anything at all, a philosophy firmly rooted in the belief that there’s nothing new under the sun.

From New York Times ● Sep. 8, 2020

There is nothing new under the sun, and human nature remains substantially unchanged generation after generation.

From Religion & Sex Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development by Chapman Cohen