banal

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“
The underlying premise of the movie was that high-school kids are banal, and they don't have anything to say.

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Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. adjective Drearily commonplace and often predictable; trite: "Blunt language cannot hide a banal conception” (James Wolcott).
  2. usage note
    The pronunciation of banal is not settled among educated speakers of American English. Sixty years ago, H.W. Fowler recommended the pronunciation (bănˈəl, rhyming with panel), but this pronunciation is now regarded as recondite by most Americans: no member of the Usage Panel prefers this pronunciation. In our 2001 survey, (bənălˈ) is preferred by 58 percent of the Usage Panel, (bāˈnəl) by 28 percent, and (bə-nälˈ) by 13 percent (this pronunciation is more common in British English). Some Panelists admit to being so vexed by the problem that they tend to avoid the word in conversation. Speakers can perhaps take comfort in knowing that these three pronunciations each have the support of at least some of the Usage Panel and that none of them is incorrect. When several pronunciations of a word are widely used, there is really no right or wrong one.

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Examples (48)

  • I'm also convinced that in an age of computer manipulation, surrealism has become banal, a shadow of its former self. —  Milton Glaser on using design to make ideas new
  • Kitty would have said something at once maddeningly wise and banal, the lover de nuit bobbing his head in dreamy agreement. —  Lippman, Laura - [Tess Monaghan 02] - Charm City
  • Gispert uses icons and references which are intentionally valid to all societies where the banal, artificial and powerful are impinging on the primitive and underprivileged. —  Daily Serving
  • IRC can be just as stupid, banal, and far more offensive than anything Twitter puts out, but it's still used by a lot of computer people to coordinate projects and get tech support. —  AlterNet.org Main RSS Feed
  • This is rather different from the banal, and all too smug assertion that what Caesar does is, as such, good, because, you know, he's there by 'God's will' and so must be for our own good. —  Latest entries from endlesslyrocking.blog-city.com
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This word has been looked up 442 times.

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Suggestions Wordniks Suggest

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

trite ·  vapid ·  uninteresting ·  trivial ·  irrelevant ·  innocuous ·  bore ·  stilted ·  meaningless ·  prosaic ·  insipid ·  uneventful
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. French, from Old French, shared by tenants in a feudal jurisdiction, from ban, summons to military service, of Germanic origin; see bhā-2 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Formerly also bannal, from French bannal (Cotgrave), now banal = Provencal banal, from Middle Latin bannalis, pertaining to compulsory feudal service: applied especially to mills, wells, ovens, etc., used in common by people of the lower classes, upon the command of a feudal superior; hence, common, commonplace; from bannum, command, proclamation: see ban, n.
  2. from ban + -al.
 

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/ˈbænəl/
by American Heritage
by Mary Mark Ockerbloom

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