as in clichés
an idea or expression that has been used by many people
the familiar summertime commonplace that "It's not the heat, it's the humidity"
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for commonplaces
Noun
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Some, but not all, of those tropes are present in Spanish filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s behind-the-scenes drama The Beloved (El Ser Querido), which manages to add a few welcome twists to the formula.—
Jordan Mintzer,
HollywoodReporter,
16 May 2026 -
And the undoing of the normative tropes of, like, Sex is this act that starts with foreplay and ends with the male climax!—
Rachel Handler,
Vulture,
14 May 2026
Noun
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One effect of this austerity and repression is to focus attention on Albee’s language, with its slippery banalities and barbs.—
Steven Winn,
San Francisco Chronicle,
3 Apr. 2026
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As far back as the Victorian era, exchanging a few banalities was part of a veritable social code—a way of signaling both politeness and boundaries.—
Jeanne Ballion,
Vogue,
27 Dec. 2025
Noun
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The play isn’t subtle; the final sequence leans hard on truisms about addiction and trauma, which are affecting but overly explicit.—
Sheldon Pearce,
New Yorker,
20 Feb. 2026
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One of the truisms in the past for Team Canada at some best-on-best events is needing a few games to find its game.—
Pierre LeBrun,
New York Times,
12 Feb. 2026
Noun
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Taiwan Beneath all the platitudes, there are still some simmering tensions.—
Selina Wang,
ABC News,
14 May 2026
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The lyrics—elsewhere evocative—wilt dramatically, a slurry of platitudes.—
Linnie Greene,
Pitchfork,
29 Apr. 2026
Noun
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Sets come in half-dozens and include designs like a soccer ball, a flag, celebratory sayings in the language and a jersey, according to its website.—
Noelle Alviz-Gransee
May 15,
Kansas City Star,
15 May 2026
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Readers share Mother's Day advice, funny sayings and expressions from moms.—
Letters to the Editor,
Washington Post,
8 May 2026
Noun
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While these songs might appear to be somewhat straightforward EBM that wear their politics on their latex sleeve, there’s a level of ambiguity at work that moves Kissing Luck Goodbye past its own bromides and into deeper artistic territory.—
Sadie Sartini Garner,
Pitchfork,
16 Apr. 2026
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Disruption without construction Instructors burned out with the current situation endure a barrage of repetitive bromides.—
ArsTechnica,
ArsTechnica,
13 Apr. 2026
Noun
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At this year’s Thorpe ceremony, too, Barron and Dennard — men of faith — bonded over Proverbs 27:17, talking about Barron’s future.—
Luca Evans,
Denver Post,
12 Apr. 2026
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For nine months, Erasmus spent his short nights in a modest dorm and his long days in the print shop, expanding on his collection of proverbs Adagiorum chiliades while Aldus proofread, craftsman carefully laying sets of print and rolling paper through the press.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
24 Nov. 2025
Noun
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In the medieval town of Belvì, men roast chestnuts—marroni—over an open fire in a frying pan the size of a swimming pool and then serve them to the crowd by shoveling them into troughs.—
IEEE Spectrum,
IEEE Spectrum,
7 May 2026
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Canned Water Chestnuts Fresh water chestnuts, while hard to find, are sweeter and juicier than canned varieties, with a cleaner, more pronounced crunch.—
Katie Rosenhouse,
Southern Living,
6 Mar. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Commonplaces.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/commonplaces. Accessed 22 May. 2026.
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