Commonplace

Definition: Commonplace

Commonplace

Adjective

1. Obvious and dull; "trivial conversation"; "commonplace prose".

2. Completely ordinary and unremarkable; "air travel has now become commonplace"; "commonplace everyday activities".

3. Not challenging; dull and lacking excitement; "an unglamorous job greasing engines".

4. Repeated too often; overfamiliar through overuse; "bromidic sermons"; "his remarks were trite and commonplace"; "hackneyed phrases"; "a stock answer"; "repeating threadbare jokes"; "parroting some timeworn axiom"; "the trite metaphor `hard as nails'".

Noun

1. A trite or obvious remark.

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
 

Date "commonplace" was first used: 1549. (references)

Synonyms: Commonplace

Compendium

Album; scrap book, note book, memorandum book, commonplace book; extracts, excerpta, cuttings; fugitive pieces, fugitive writing; spicilegium, flowers, anthology, collectanea, analecta; compilation.

Dullness

Adjective: dull, dull as ditch water; unentertaining, uninteresting, flat, dry as dust; unfunny, unlively, logy; unimaginative; insulse; dry as dust; prosy, prosing, prosaic; matter of fact, commonplace, pedestrian, pointless; "weary stale flat and unprofitable".

Impulse

Adjective: habitual; accustomary; prescriptive, accustomed; Verb: of daily occurrence, of everyday occurrence; consuetudinary; wonted, usual, general, ordinary, common, frequent, everyday, household, garden variety, jog, trot; well-trodden, well-known; familiar, vernacular, trite, commonplace, conventional, regular, set, stock, established, stereotyped; prevailing, prevalent; current, received, acknowledged, recognized, accredited; of course, admitted, understood.

Knowledge

Known; Verb: ascertained, well-known, recognized, received, notorious, noted; proverbial; familiar, familiar as household words, familiar to every schoolboy; hackneyed, trite, trivial, commonplace.

Maxim

Received truth, wise maxim, sage maxim, received maxim, admitted maxim, recognized maxim; true saying, common saying, hackneyed saying, trite saying, commonplace saying;

Mean

Mediocre, middle-class; commonplace; (unimportant).

Plainness

Adjective: plain, simple; unornamented, unadorned, unvarnished; homely, homespun; neat; severe, chaste, pure, Saxon; commonplace, matter-of-fact, natural, prosaic.

Record

Notebook, memorandum book, memo book, pocketbook, commonplace book; portfolio; pigeonholes, excerpta, adversaria, jottings, dottings.

Unimportance

Subordinate; (inferior); mediocre; (average); passable, fair, respectable, tolerable, commonplace; uneventful, mere, common; ordinary; (habitual); inconsiderable, so-so, insignificant, inappreciable.

Crosswords: Commonplace

Do not be fooled by its commonplace appearance. (Aladdin; writing credit: Roger Allers; Ron Clements)

If to be interesting is to be uncommonplace, it is becoming a question, with me, if there are any commonplace people. (references; author: Mark Twain)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Books

• Commonplace (reference)

• Gift of the Commonplace (Lux (Carmel, Calif.), 4.) (reference)

• Life and Old Age - A Commonplace Book (reference)

• Prairie Home Commonplace Book : 25 Years on the Air With Garrison Keillor (reference)

• Rare and Commonplace Flowers: The Story of Elizabeth Bishop and Lota de Macedo Soares (reference)

  (more book examples)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

The heroism of yesterday is the commonplace of today. Credit: Library of Congress.

Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

The page of life that was spread out before me seemed dull and commonplace, only because I had not fathomed its deeper import.

Triumph of the commonplace, grateful to majorities.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Health

A commonplace bacterium such as Staphylococcus aureus or a usually harmless fungus such as Aspergillus may cause skin infections and rashes, liver abscesses, fever and persistent cough. (references)

Business

The use of industrial robots at such companies is, for obvious reasons, commonplace. (references)

Direct criticism of the Government, especially in print media, is severe and commonplace. (references)

New Zealand is a sophisticated marketplace where technology such as telephones faxes and e-mail is commonplace. (references)

Civil Liberties

Cameroon

Roadblocks and checkpoints manned by security forces have proliferated in cities and most highways and make road travel both time-consuming and costly, since extortion of small bribes was commonplace at these checkpoints. (references)

Economic History

Andorra

As a result, smuggling is commonplace. (references)

Saudi Arabia

Bribes, often disguised as "commissions," are reputed to be commonplace. (references)

Human Rights

Nigeria

Killings carried out by organized gangs of armed robbers remained commonplace throughout the year. (references)

Iraq

The law defines security offenses so broadly that authorities effectively are exempt from the legal requirement to obtain search warrants, and searches without warrants are commonplace. (references)

Brazil

Among the most serious charges were the commonplace undocumented and uninvestigated deaths of inmates at the hands of authorities or other prisoners, and the routine use of torture against inmates by both guards and police officers. (references)

Minorities

Poland

Societal discrimination against Roma is commonplace, and some local officials discriminate against Roma in the provision of social services. (references)

Political Economy

PARAGUAY

However, labeling of imported goods at distribution centers within Paraguay is still commonplace. (references)

MOROCCO

Investment abroad by Moroccan individuals or corporations is subject to approval by the Foreign Exchange Board, but is becoming more commonplace. (references)

Trade

China

The most commonplace are letter of credits and documentary collections. (references)

Tanzania

Clearance delays and extra-legal levies are commonplace when dealing with the Tanzanian Customs Department. (references)

Korea

Prior to the economic crisis, loans and guarantees from the U.S. Export-Import Bank (Eximbank) of the United States were not commonplace because international trade transactions were being conducted in a stable environment. (references)

Travel

Kuwait

Good road surfaces, powerful cars and lax enforcement of traffic regulations combine to make speeding commonplace and driving very hazardous. (references)

Korea

The heavy drinking of the Korean alcohol, Soju, beer, whiskey or other liquor is commonplace in establishing a personal, business relationship. (references)

Korea

Also commonplace is the "no-ray-bang" where a group of businesspeople go to an establishment to drink and sing along to a video machine playing music. (references)

Worker Rights

Nigeria

During the year, there was at least one documented case of trafficking in children reported in Lagos; however, incidents of trafficking in Lagos and other major Nigerian cities were suspected to be commonplace. (references)

Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

Expressions using "commonplace": commonplace book ♦ reduce to the commonplace. Additional references.

Ending with "commonplace": diary-cum-commonplace.

Afrikaans

alledaags (daily, dismal, trite). (various references)

Albanian

vërejtje e rëndomtë, i zakonshëm (accustomed, common, common or garden, consuetudinary, current, customary, daily, day to day, everyday, familiar, general, habitual, homely, mundane, natural, normal, ordinary, ready made, regular, routine, second best, standard, usual, vulgar, wonted, workaday), i rëndomtë (banal, base, coarse, common, copybook, corny, everyday, habitual, hackneyed, homely, mundane, ordinary, plain, platitudinous, prose, prosy, second rate, substandard, trite, vulgar), gjë e zakonshme (second rater). (various references)

Arabic 

‏مكان عام (platitude, public place, tag), ‏ملاحظة مبتذلة (bromide), ‏ملاحظة عادية, ‏موضع مشترك, ‏مألوف (accustomed, beaten, conventional, customary, familiar, frequent, habitual, homely, household, ordinary, orthodox, popular, regular, usual, vulgar), ‏مبتذل (banal, common, conventional, corny, everyday, fade, fading, hack, hackneyed, outworn, overused, pedestrian, platitudinous, plebeian, prosaic, prose, routine, slipshod, stale, stereotyped, tacky, threadbare, tired, trite, trivial, vapid, vulgar, well worn, workaday, worn out), ‏وضع مشترك, ‏تافه (banal, contemptible, crummy, fade, fiddling, flat, foolish, footling, fractional, frivolous, frothy, good for nothing, inane, inconsiderable, insignificant, junk, light, lilliputian, little, lowbrow, measly, minute, naught, negligible, niggling, nonsensical, nugatory, null, paltry, pedestrian, petty, piddling, pimping, piteous, pitiable, platitudinous, pointless, puny, ridiculous, run of the mill, silly, slight, slim, small time, smelly, stupid, trifle, trifling, trite, trivial, trumpery, two a penny, two bit, twopenny-halfpenny, unimportant, unsavory, unsavoury, unworthy, vain, valueless, vapid, vile, worthless), ‏عادي (average, banal, classless, common, conventional, household, lay, mean, medial, mediocre, middling, mundane, natural, normal, ordinary, plain, plebeian, poor, prosaic, run of the mill, second rate, simple, some, stock, trivial, unexceptional, wont). (various references)

Bulgarian 

глупава забележка (platitude), всекидневен (daily, day to day, everyday, informal, knockabout, workaday), обикновен (accustomed, average, common, everyday, familiar, frequent, homely, humdrum, low, matter of fact, mere, moderate, mundane, ordinary, plain, quiet, regular, routine, run of the mill, simple, trite, trivial, unaffected, undistinguished, unexceptional, unremarkable, usual, wonted), банален (banal, everyday, flatulent, hack, hackneyed, namby-pamby, pedestrian, platitudinous, quotidian, tired, trite, trivial, twice-told, vapid, well worn, worn out), прост (abc, artless, childlike, common, easy, elemental, elementary, funky, grave, homelike, homespun, humble, illiberal, low, native, onefold, open and shut, ordinary, plain, prime, primitive, rugged, rustic, simple, sleazy, straight, straightforward, uncomplicated, unpretentious, vulgar), плосък (depressed, even, flat, level, plane, tabular, vapid), площаден (tub-thumping, vulgar), изтъркана тема, известен пасаж. (various references)

Chinese 

普遍 (general, universal, widespread). (various references)

Czech

všední (corny, everyday, flat, ordinary, shallow, trite, trivial), otřepaná fráze (banality). (various references)

Dutch

banaal (dismal, trite), alledaags (common, daily, dismal, everyday, trite, vulgar), afgezaagd (dismal, hackneyed, hard-worked, stale, trite, worn-out). (various references)

Esperanto

triviala (course, vulgar), banala (dismal, trite). (various references)

Farsi 

پیش پاافتاده (Banal, Common, Ordinary), معمولی (Banal, Common, General, Ordinary, Ornery), مبتذل (Banal, Humdrum, Pedestrian, Stale, Trivial, Vulgar), همه جاءی (Banal). (various references)

Finnish

jokapäiväinen (daily, every day, ordinary, trite), banaali (banal), arkipäiväinen (everyday, humdrum), arkinen (everyday). (various references)

French

banal (corny), trivial (course). (various references)

Frisian

sljochtweihinne (dismal, trite), deisk (daily, dismal, trite). (various references)

German

gemeinplatz (bathos, truism), banal (banal, banally, dismal, hackneyed, mundane, trite, trivial). (various references)

Greek 

κοινόσ (banal, common, communal, mutual, ordinary, stock), κοινοτοπία (banality, clichι, platitude, triteness), τετριμμένοσ (banal, hackneyed, outworn, platitudinous, prosaic, prosaical, shopworn, threadbare, trite, well worn, worn out). (various references)

Hebrew 

�"בר ר�'יל (stock). (various references)

Hungarian

köznapi (casual, drab, quotidian), banális (banal, corny, dismal, quotidian, stale, trite). (various references)

Indonesian

lumrah (customary, normal, ordinary, usual). (various references)

Italian

banale (banal, common, corny, dismal, hackneyed, mundane, platitudinous, prosy, trite, trivial), luogo comune. (various references)

Japanese Kanji 

平凡 (common, mediocre, ordinary), 凡庸 (banality, mediocre). (various references)

Japanese Katakana 

おざなり (perfunctory), な�"のへ�"てつもない (ordinary, plain), きまりきった (fixed, obvious), ぼつしゅみ (insipid, vapid), ぼ�"よう (banality, mediocre), ありふれた (mundane, trite, unsurprising), じょうしきてき (ordinary, sensible), へいぼ�" (common, mediocre, ordinary). (various references)

Korean 

평�"한 (Conventional, mediocre). (various references)

Manx

cadjin (colloquial, lowbrow, normal, popular, unexceptional). (various references)

Pig Latin

ommonplacecay

Portuguese

vulgar (accepted, artless, banal, blanket, coarse, common, demotic, dismal, earthy, everyday, gossipy, gross, hackney, hackneyed, humdrum, inelaborate, low, low-minded, mediocre, ordinary, pedestrian, penny-a-line, platitudinarian, platitudinous, prosaic, quotidian, ready-made, soulless, trite, trivial, undistinguished, uninspired, unladylike, unoriginal, usual, vulgar, vulgarian), trivial (banal, blanket, bread and butter, common, course, dismal, inelaborate, light, pedestrian, petty, piddling, platitudinarian, platitudinous, potty, prosy, puerile, quotidian, slight, small, threadbare, trifling, trite, trivial, unimportant, uninspired, vulgar), banal (banal, characterless, common, dismal, flimsy, hackneyed, humdrum, platitudinarian, platitudinous, potty, prosaic, prosy, quotidian, ready-made, stale, trifling, trite, trivial, undistinguished, unimportant, unoriginal, vulgar). (various references)

Romanian

prozaism (prosaism), prozaic (bread and butter, matter of fact, pedestrian, prosaic, prosaically, prosily, prosy, unimaginative, unpoetical, workaday), platitudine (baldness, bromide, cliché, flatness, platitude, sterility), plat (bald, flat, homely, insipid), ordinar (boorish, caddish, coarse, common, customary, frequent, gross, homespun, improper, ordinary, regular, rough, slavish, trivial, unrefined, usual, vulgar), obişnuit (accustomed, average, common, customarily, customary, frequent, frequently, habitual, habitually, habitue, normal, ordinary, regular, rife, routine, standard, used to, usual, usually, wonted, workaday), notã (annotation, billet, chit, grade, jotting, Mark, memorandum, minute, note, notes, par, paragraph, rating, remark), loc comun, ieftin (cheap, fair, inexpensive, inexpensively, low, low-priced, modest, popular, reasonable, threepenny, trite, twopenny, worthless), face însemnãri (write down), extrage note, debita banalitãţi, banalitate (banality, bromide, triteness, triviality), banal (banal, cheap, daily, dusty, everyday, hackneyed, humdrum, indifferent, indistinctive, insipid, mediocre, puerile, small, threadbare, trite, trivial, unimaginative), şablon (cliché, form, humdrum, jig, model, mule, pass, pattern, sample, stencil). (various references)

Russian 

банальность (banality, platitude, triviality). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian

otrcan (corny, hackneyed, outworn, shabby, stale, tame, threadbare, trite, well worn), banalnost (banality, bathos, triteness), banalan (banal, camp, corny, crude, hackneyed, trite). (various references)

Spanish

trivial (banal, dismal, fiddling, footling, mundane, piffling, platitudinous, sapless, trite, trivial). (various references)

Swedish

trivial (course, fiddling, pedestrian, pettifogging, petty, trite, trivial, vulgar), vardaglig (colloquial, everyday, every-day, ordinary, prosaic), banal (banal, corny, dismal, flat, hack, hackneyed, humdrum, insipid, novelettish, platitudinarian, threadbare, trite), alldaglig (daily, everyday, homely, humdrum, lowly, ordinary, pedestrian, plain, workaday). (various references)

Turkish

sıradan (average, banal, blah, casual, casually, common, common or garden, copybook, cut and dried, exoteric, hack, hackneyed, mediocre, nondescript, ordinary, prosaic, quotidian, regular, routine, run-off-the-mill, small, straight, unexceptional, workaday), sık söylenen söz, olağan (common, everyday, mediocre, mundane, ordinary, regular, run-off-the-mill, usual), klişe (cardboard box, cliché, cut, printing block, stereo, stereoplate, stereotype), beylik lâf (bromide, platitude), bayağı (banal, camp, cheap, coarse, coarse grained, common, common as dirt, corrupt, dastardly, debased, goodish, inferior, lewd, little, low camp, low class, no class, ordinary, plebeian, pretty, prosaic, quite, rather, run-off-the-mill, shoddy, tawdry, tolerably, vulgar), adi (abject, base, camp, campy, cheap jack, chintzy, coarse, coarse grained, common, common as dirt, contemptible, dastardly, despicable, everyday, groveling, grovelling, gutter, hackneyed, jerkwater, little, low, low class, mean, measly, no class, one horse, ordinary, ornery, picayune, picayunish, poky, rubbishy, shoddy, slavish, sleazy, twopenny, twopenny-halfpenny, vile, vulgar, wormy, yellow dog). (various references)

Ukrainian

звичайна пригода, заяложений вислів, заяложений (ordinary, outworn, platitudinous, ready made, shiny, stale, stock, threadbare), занотовувати (note, take notes), банальність (banality, commonness, flatness, humdrum, platitude, vapidity), банальний (banal, hack, hackneyed, humdrum, obvious, platitudinous, quotidian, trite, worn). (various references)

Vietnamese 

chuyện tầm thường (fiddle-faddle, nothing), chuyện cũ rích, cũ rích (trite), tầm thường; sáo (banal), lời nói tầm thường (platitude), điều đáng ghi v� o sổ tay việc tầm thường. (various references)

koinos topos. (various references)

abiectus, obvius. (various references)

Derivations

Words beginning with "commonplace": commonplaceness, commonplacenesses, commonplaces. (additional references)

Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

-4 letters: compone, conceal, lampoon, monocle.

-5 letters: ammono, cancel, coelom, colone, common, compel, copalm, encamp, pomace, pomelo, pommel.

+1 letter: commonplaces.

+4 letters: commonplaceness.