Meaning of commonplace | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A platitude or cliché.
2. Something that is ordinary; something commonly done or occurring.
3. A memorandum; something to be frequently consulted or referred to.
4. A commonplace book.

Equivalents

Examples

“Finally he began to mutter some commonplaces which meant nothing particularly.”

“And something angered Tamara in the way the Prince assisted in all this, out-commonplacing her friend in commonplaces with the suavest politeness.”

“It is odd how easily the common-places of morality or of sentiment glide off in conversation. Well, they are "exceedingly helpful," and so Lord Avonleigh found them.”

“"MY dear fellow," said Sherlock Holmes, as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker-street, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence.[…]"”

“And, placed discreetly among these commonplaces, a few pieces of genuine quality, bizarrely distinguished by craftsmanship from the vulgar products of the machine.”

“The smallest commonplace of domestic life, so amiable to the healthy mind, lacerates like a blade.”

“Collecting data via transects is a commonplace in biology[.]”

“Whatever, in my reading, occurs concerning this our fellow creature, I do never fail to set it down by way of common-place.”

CEFR level