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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

“A relationship with a subordinate is so garden-variety, it’s not going to influence that many board members other than for them to say, ‘Let’s give this person a warning,’” she said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026

Of course, more force than your typical garden-variety arrest warrant was required, hence the military aspect.

From MarketWatch ● Jan. 10, 2026

But the theater’s ability to turn family dysfunction, be it alcoholism, Alzheimer’s or just garden-variety existential agony, into entertainment and instant illumination, has long been a staple of the American stage.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 28, 2025

Though the discomfort of a DRE pales in comparison to what basically any woman endures in a garden-variety OB-GYN appointment, many men have long viewed the exam as a barely bearable indignity.

From Slate ● Aug. 17, 2024

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

This is not another garden variety Latin genre list, but a highlight reel of 2025 releases that showcases artists from Latin America and the diaspora.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 18, 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

This is not just garden variety lying, but being so adamant about an obviously untrue thing that your interlocutor gives up fighting for the truth out of sheer exhaustion.

From Salon ● May 26, 2022

I'm trying to recall the physiology of Octopus vulgaris, as the garden variety of octopus is called, but my memory isn't working.

From The Wailing Octopus by Harold L. (Harold Leland) Goodwin

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