unoriginal

unoriginal adjective: lacking originality.

Adjective

unoriginal (comparative more unoriginal, superlative most unoriginal)

Lacking originality.
- Redundancies are as unoriginal as Insipidities, and the Spirit of an Author may be as much overwhelmed in Exuberance on the one Hand, as it evaporates in Frigidity on the other.1758, William Hawkins, Tracts in Divinity, Oxford, Volume 2, Letter 12 [on Pope’ translations of Homer], pp. 418-419
- Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of. They cannot see what it is to do for them: how should they?1859, John Stuart Mill, “Of the Limits to the Authority of Society over the Individual”, in On Liberty, London: John W[illiam] Parker and Son, […], →OCLC, page 117
Synonyms:

uncreative, unimaginative, uninventive, clichéd, derivative, predictable, slavish, stock
(rare) Not being the first or earliest version of something, not original.
- [This tale] occurs in an MS. of the fifteenth century in an obviously unoriginal form which shows that the story-teller did not appreciate the significance of many features in the folk-tale he was retelling […]1894, Joseph Jacobs (editor), More Celtic Fairy Tales, London: David Nutt, Notes and References, “The Leeching of Kayn’s Leg,” p. 232
(obsolete) Without an origin or source.
- [I] plung’d in the womb
  Of unoriginal Night and Chaos wilde,1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...

unoriginal (plural unoriginals)

A person or work that does not exhibit originality.
- Ahmad (1969) studied the personality differences among middle school girls identified as originals and unoriginals on the Minnesota's test of creative thinking.1975, The Educational Trends, volumes 10-14, page 59
- The originals or the creatives were more dominant than the unoriginals or the low creatives.2010, A. Kusuma, Creativity and Cognitive Styles in Children, page 73

ماخوذ, نقلی

“[…] Everything in its proper time and season,” he added, with the unoriginal man’s fondness for proverbial philosophy.1902, William Somerset Maugham, Mrs Craddock:
If you’re a writer, you will write a lot of unoriginal work before you write something original.2023 February 9, Ted Chiang, “ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web”, in The New Yorker:

From un- + original.

What does unoriginal mean?: Unoriginal means lacking originality.
What is unoriginal in Urdu?: Unoriginal in Urdu is ماخوذ, نقلی. See Unoriginal meaning in Urdu.
How do you use unoriginal in a sentence?: “[…] Everything in its proper time and season,” he added, with the unoriginal man’s fondness for proverbial philosophy.
What part of speech is unoriginal?: Unoriginal can be an adjective or a noun.

Adapted from Wiktionary: unoriginal (page history and authors); unoriginal (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors). 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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “unoriginal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unoriginal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.