commonplace
Syllables: com·mon·place/ˈkɒmənˌpleɪs//ˈkɑmənˌpleɪs/
commonplace adjective: ordinary; not having any remarkable characteristics.
Adjective
commonplace (comparative more commonplace, superlative most commonplace)
- Ordinary; not having any remarkable characteristics.
- "This Mr. Tyrrel," she said, in a tone of authoritative decision, "seems after all a very ordinary sort of person, quite a commonplace man."1824, Sir Walter Scott, chapter 7, in St. Ronan's Well
- In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts,[…], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- routine, undistinguished, unexceptional, quotidian, banal, bathetic, bromidic, cheesy, stock, clichéd
- Antonyms:
- distinguished, inimitable, unique
Noun
commonplace (countable and uncountable, plural commonplaces)
- A platitude or cliché.
- Finally he began to mutter some commonplaces which meant nothing particularly.1899, Stephen Crane, chapter 17, in Active Service
- And something angered Tamara in the way the Prince assisted in all this, out-commonplacing her friend in commonplaces with the suavest politeness.1910, Elinor Glyn, chapter 4, in His Hour
- Something that is ordinary; something commonly done or occurring.
- 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.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 137
- "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.[…]"1891 [September], A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Adventure III.—A Case of Identity.”, in Geo[rge] Newnes, editor, The Strand Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly, volume II (July...
- A memorandum; something to be frequently consulted or referred to.
- Whatever, in my reading, occurs concerning this our fellow creature, I do never fail to set it down by way of common-place.1710, Jonathan Swift, A Discourse concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit
- A commonplace book.
Verb
commonplace (third-person singular simple present commonplaces, present participle commonplacing, simple past and past participle commonplaced)
- To make a commonplace book.
- To enter in a commonplace book, or to reduce to general heads.
- I do not apprehend any difficulty in collecting and commonplacing an universal history from the […]historians.1711, Henry Felton, Dissertation on Reading the Classics
- To utter commonplaces; to indulge in platitudes.
- And something angered Tamara in the way the Prince assisted in all this, out-commonplacing her friend in commonplaces with the suavest politeness.1910, Elinor Glyn, chapter 4, in His Hour
- c. January 1620, Francis Bacon, letter to the King
For the good that comes of particular and select committees and commissions, I need not commonplace.
commonplace meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Gujarati
commonplace in Bengali
- সাধারণ, সাধারণ ঘটনা
commonplace in Malayalam
- നിസ്സാരമായ, സാധാരണമായ വിഷയം, സാമാന്യകാര്യം, കഴമ്പില്ലാത്തത്
commonplace in Gujarati
- કોમનપ્લેસિંગ, કોમનપ્લેસીંગ
More languagesFewer languages
- commonplace in Indonesian
- lumrah
- commonplace in Vietnamese
- đời thường
Examples of commonplace in a sentence
- I could get hold of nothing but of some commonplace phrases, those futile phrases that give the measure of our impotence before each other's trials.1911, Joseph Conrad, chapter 1, in Under Western Eyes:
- Commonplace sounds had turned into threats.1970, Wally Ferris, Across 110th, page 193:
- In the old days, hopping onto the platform from a not-yet-stopped train was a commonplace stunt for daily commuters in a hurry.2025 July 9, Frank Mueller, “Protecting the railway from new and existing dangers”, in RAIL, number 1039, page 62:
- And, placed discreetly among these commonplaces, a few pieces of genuine quality, bizarrely distinguished by craftsmanship from the vulgar products of the machine.1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 150:
Synonyms of commonplace
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of commonplace
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more commonplace |
| superlative | most commonplace |
| alternative form (obsolete) | common place |
| alternative form (archaic) | common-place |
| Noun | |
| plural | commonplaces |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | commonplaces |
| present participle | commonplacing |
| past participle | commonplaced |
| past | commonplaced |
Origin of commonplace
A calque of Latin locus commūnis, referring to a generally applicable literary passage, itself a calque of Ancient Greek κοινὸς τόπος (koinòs tópos).
Words formed from commonplace
Phrases with commonplace
Questions about commonplace
- What does commonplace mean?
- Commonplace means ordinary; not having any remarkable characteristics.
- What is commonplace in Urdu?
- Commonplace in Urdu is عام. See Commonplace meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use commonplace in a sentence?
- I could get hold of nothing but of some commonplace phrases, those futile phrases that give the measure of our impotence before each other's trials.
- What part of speech is commonplace?
- Commonplace can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce commonplace?
- Commonplace is pronounced /ˈkɑmənˌpleɪs/ (US).
Words near commonplace in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: commonplace (page history and authors); commonplace (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); commonplace (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); commonplace (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); commonplace (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-commonplace.ogg, en-GB-commonplace.ogg.
Cite this entry: “commonplace.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/commonplace. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.