- ordinary; everyday
- dull and obvious; trite: commonplace prose
- something dull and trite, esp a remark; platitude; truism
- a passage in a book marked for inclusion in a commonplace book, etc
- an ordinary or common thing
WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2026
com•mon•place /ˈkɑmənˌpleɪs/USA pronunciation
adj.
n. [countable]
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026- ordinary;
uninteresting;
usual:commonplace expressions in his writing.
n. [countable]
- a well-known or obvious remark or statement;
platitude:It is a commonplace that the world has grown more complex. - anything common or uninteresting.
com•mon•place
(kom′ən plās′),USA pronunciation adj.
n.
com′mon•place′ly, adv.
com′mon•place′ness, n.
- ordinary;
undistinguished or uninteresting;
without individuality:a commonplace person. - trite;
hackneyed;
platitudinous:a commonplace remark.
n.
- a well-known, customary, or obvious remark;
a trite or uninteresting saying. - anything common, ordinary, or uninteresting.
- [Archaic.]a place or passage in a book or writing noted as important for reference or quotation.
- translation of Latin locus commūnis, itself translation of Greek koinòs tópos 1525–35
com′mon•place′ness, n.
- 2. Commonplace, banal, hackneyed, stereotyped, trite describe words, remarks, and styles of expression that are lifeless and uninteresting. Commonplace characterizes thought that is dull, ordinary, and platitudinous:commonplace and boring.Something is banal that seems inane, insipid, and pointless:a heavy-handed and banal affirmation of the obvious.Hackneyed characterizes something that seems stale and worn out through overuse:a hackneyed comparison.Stereotyped emphasizes the fact that situations felt to be similar invariably call for the same thought in exactly the same form and the same words:so stereotyped as to seem automatic.Trite describes something that was originally striking and apt, but which has become so well-known and been so commonly used that all interest has been worn out of it:true but trite. 3. cliché, bromide, platitude, stereotype.
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
commonplace /ˈkɒmənˌpleɪs/ adj
'commonplace' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):
banal
- commonplace book
- everyday
- hackney
- inferior
- ordinary
- pedestrian
- platitude
- prose
- proverb
- quotidian
- special
- topic
- topo-
- trivial
- usual
- vulgarize
- anticlimax
- bathos
- cliché
- clichéd
- copybook
- dangling participle
- earthly
- epiphany
- exoteric
- hackneyed
- indifferent
- marvelous
- matter of fact
- middling
- neopopulist
- orthodox
- pedestrianism
- philistine
- photorealism
- plebeian
- prosaic
- prosaist
- prosy
- pro-verb
- rise
- routine
- run-of-the-mill
- timeworn
- trite
- week
- workaday
- second-rate
- stereotyped