Adjacent Words

banal definitions

	Tweet

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: 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'" [syn: banal, commonplace, hackneyed, old-hat, shopworn, stock, threadbare, timeworn, tired, trite, well-worn]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Etymology: French, from Middle French, of compulsory feudal service, possessed in common, commonplace, from ban Date: 1825 lacking originality, freshness, or novelty ; trite Synonyms: see insipid • banalize transitive verb • banally adverb

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. trite, feeble, commonplace. Derivatives: banality n. (pl. -ies). banally adv. Etymology: orig. in sense 'compulsory', hence 'common to all', f. F f. ban (as BAN)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Banal Ban"al, a. [F., fr. ban an ordinance.] Commonplace; trivial; hackneyed; trite.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

If you describe something as banal, you do not like it because you think that it is so ordinary that it is not at all effective or interesting. Bland, banal music tinkled discreetly from hidden loudspeakers. ADJ [disapproval] • You can refer to banal things as the banal. The allegations ranged from the banal to the bizarre. N-SING: the N • banality (banalities) ...the banality of life... Neil's ability to utter banalities never ceased to amaze me. N-VAR

Moby Thesaurus

asinine, average, back-number, bewhiskered, bland, bromidic, central, cliched, common, commonplace, corny, cut-and-dried, everyday, fade, familiar, fatuous, flat, fusty, hackney, hackneyed, hoary, humdrum, intermediary, intermediate, jejune, mean, medial, median, mediocre, medium, middle-of-the-road, middling, milk-and-water, moderate, moth-eaten, musty, namby-pamby, normal, old, old hat, ordinary, pedestrian, petty, platitudinous, routine, sapless, set, silly, simple, square, stale, standard, stereotyped, stock, threadbare, timeworn, tired, trite, trivial, truistic, unimaginative, unoriginal, usual, vapid, warmed-over, waterish, watery, well-known, well-worn, wishy-washy, worn, worn thin