Banality

Banality
Banality Ba*nal"i*ty, n.; pl. {Banalities}. [F. banalit['e]. See {Banal}.] Something commonplace, hackneyed, or trivial; the commonplace, in speech. [1913 Webster]

The highest things were thus brought down to the banalities of discourse. --J. Morley. [1913 Webster]


The Collaborative International Dictionary of English. 2000.

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  • banality — 1861, triteness, from Fr. banalité banality, commonplace, from banal (see BANAL (Cf. banal)) …   Etymology dictionary

  • banality — index platitude Burton s Legal Thesaurus. William C. Burton. 2006 …   Law dictionary

  • banality — [n] common saying adage, boiler*, buzzword, chestnut*, cliché, corn*, dullsville*, familiar tune*, high camp*, hokum*, old chestnut*, old saw*, plate*, platitude, prosaicism, prosaism, saw*, trite phrase, trivia, triviality, truism; concept 275… …   New thesaurus

  • banality — noun 1) the banality of most sitcoms Syn: triteness, vapidity, staleness, unimaginativeness, lack of originality, prosaicness, dullness; informal corniness Ant: originality 2) they exchanged banalities Syn …   Thesaurus of popular words

  • banality — banal ► ADJECTIVE ▪ tediously unoriginal or ordinary. DERIVATIVES banality noun (pl. banalities) banally adverb. ORIGIN originally meaning «compulsory», hence «common»: from French ban proclamation, summons …   English terms dictionary

  • Banality of Evil — The Banality of Evil is a phrase coined in 1963 by Hannah Arendt in her work Eichmann in Jerusalem. It describes the thesis that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths… …   Wikipedia

  • Banality Of Evil —    The “banality of evil” is the controversial phrase coined by Hannah Arendt when she incorporated the term as the subtitle of her 1963 book, Eichmann in Jerusalem: The Banality of Evil. It describes her argument that the Holocaust was not… …   Historical dictionary of the Holocaust

  • banality — noun (plural ties) Date: 1861 1. something banal ; commonplace 2. the quality or state of being banal …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • banality — ba·nal·i·ty (bə nălʹĭ tē, bā ) n. pl. ba·nal·i·ties 1. The condition or quality of being banal; triviality. 2. Something that is trite, obvious, or predictable; a commonplace. * * * …   Universalium

  • banality — noun /bəˈnælɨti,beɪˈnælɨti/ a) The quality of being banal. b) Something which is banal. See Also: banal …   Wiktionary

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