Adjacent Words

trite definitions

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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 (triter; tritest) Etymology: Latin tritus, from past participle of terere to rub, wear away — more at throw Date: 1548 hackneyed or boring from much use ; not fresh or original • tritely adverb • triteness noun Synonyms: trite, hackneyed, stereotyped, threadbare mean lacking the freshness that evokes attention or interest. trite applies to a once effective phrase or idea spoiled from long familiarity <“you win some, you lose some” is a trite expression>. hackneyed stresses being worn out by overuse so as to become dull and meaningless <all of the metaphors and images in the poem are hackneyed>. stereotyped implies falling invariably into the same pattern or form <views of minorities that are stereotyped and out-of-date>. threadbare applies to what has been used until its possibilities of interest have been totally exhausted <a mystery novel with a threadbare plot>.

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. (of a phrase, opinion, etc.) hackneyed, worn out by constant repetition. Derivatives: tritely adv. triteness n. Etymology: L tritus past part. of terere rub

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Trite Trite, a. [L. tritus, p. p. of terere to rub, to wear out; probably akin to E. throw. See Throw, and cf. Contrite, Detriment, Tribulation, Try.] Worn out; common; used until so common as to have lost novelty and interest; hackneyed; stale; as, a trite remark; a trite subject. -- Trite"ly, adv. -- Trite"ness, n.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

If you say that something such as an idea, remark, or story is trite, you mean that it is dull and boring because it has been said or told too many times. The movie is teeming with obvious and trite ideas... = clichéd ADJ

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. Common, stale, threadbare, hackneyed, beaten, worn out, common-place, stereotyped.

Moby Thesaurus

airy, asinine, automatic, back-number, banal, bathetic, beaten, bedridden, bewhiskered, bromidic, catchpenny, chain, cliche, cliched, common, commonly known, commonplace, constant, corny, current, cut-and-dried, drained, dull, empty, exhausted, fade, familiar, fatuous, flat, flimsy, foolish, frequent, fribble, fribbling, frivolous, frothy, fusty, futile, habitual, hack, hackney, hackneyed, household, idle, inane, jejune, light, mildewed, moth-eaten, musty, notorious, nugacious, nugatory, old hat, ordinary, otiose, overworked, persistent, platitudinous, prosaic, proverbial, public, ready-made, recurrent, recurring, regular, repetitive, routine, set, shallow, shopworn, silly, slender, slight, square, stale, stereotyped, stock, superficial, talked-about, talked-of, threadbare, timeworn, tired, trifling, trivial, truistic, twice-told, universally admitted, universally recognized, unoriginal, used up, vacuous, vain, vapid, warmed-over, well-kenned, well-known, well-recognized, well-trodden, well-understood, well-worn, widely known, windy, worn, worn thin, worn-out