Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, or typical of this world; secular.
- adj. Relating to, characteristic of, or concerned with commonplaces; ordinary.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Belonging to this world; worldly; terrestrial; earthly: as, this mundane sphere; mundane existence.
- In astrology, relating to the horizon, and not to the ecliptic. Thus, mundane parallels are small circles parallel to the horizon; mundane aspects are differences of azimuth amounting to some simple aliquot part of the circle. But the mundane aspects are calculated in such violation of the truths of trigonometry as to leave room for dispute as to what is intended.
- n. A dweller in this world.
Wiktionary
- adj. worldly, earthly, profane, vulgar as opposed to heavenly
- adj. Pertaining to the Universe, cosmos or physical reality, as opposed to the spiritual world.
- adj. ordinary; not new
- adj. tedious; repetitive and boring
- n. A person considered to be "normal", not part of the elite group.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of or pertaining to the world; worldly, as contrasted with
heavenly ; earthly; terrestrial. - adj. Commonplace; ordinary; banal.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. concerned with the world or worldly matters
- adj. belonging to this earth or world; not ideal or heavenly
- adj. found in the ordinary course of events
Etymologies
- Middle English mondeine, from Old French mondain, from Latin mundānus, from mundus, world.
Examples
“I'd revert back to thinking about guys getting blown up, getting shot at," he says, instead of focusing on what he called his "mundane and menial" schoolwork.”
“What if the mundane is the socio-cultural equivalent of the primordial soup?”
“All because s/he knows where they're going, recognizes that "mundane" is the fate of a business filled with "normal," and has the cojones to flaunt the HR/MBA guidelines because of her/his burning desire to achieve greatness.”
“(disequilibrium), or spontaneous order, but what I call mundane economics -- price theory, capital theory, monetary theory, business-cycle theory, and the theory of interventionism.”
“After a big block of text, here is my real topic: what kind of powers could be used effectively in mundane situations?”
Superhero Nation: how to write superhero novels and comic books » Faraway Soul’s Review Forum
“They are not exceptional, but they are not stupid either and they perform their tasks in mundane mediocrity A small percentage are outstanding individuals who perform above and beyond what is expected and make the rest of us look like dog turds.”
“Bullet time is put to use in mundane situations in these ads for Matrix Pachinko.”
“In a separate survey of scientists, Pew found that 85% now view the public's lack of scientific knowledge as a major problem for science, and three in four scientists said the news media's inability to separate significant scientific achievements from the mundane is one reason the public seems so misinformed.”
“I didn't realize that the almighty would get involved in mundane issues like US foreign policy. dubya luver”
“I want to study it and study it to see how he does that, how the mundane is suddenly underlaid with the utmost revelations and profoundities.”
charles p. ries | one book « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘mundane’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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3/4 year Vocab List
garbled, verbose, behoove, runt, douse, stipulate, condolence, incongruous, mundane, euphemism, brusque, labyrinth and 96 more...
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3/4 year Vocab List
lackluster, reprimand, loathe, abhor, willful, ample, tremulous, ominous, subtle, rescind, redundant, pretentious and 96 more...
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The weird, the wonderful and the plain hilarious
Loved for their ingenuity, an exact description, or simply for the pure joy of it.
acidulous, aprosdoketon, higgledy-piggledy, lexicographical, ninja, audacious, somnabulist, shivaree, amorphous, quidnunc, glib, melancholy and 353 more...
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avfordomd's list
lexicon
copacetic, amiable, philanthropic, misanthropic, gregarious, vehement, parcel, congregate, paucity, passel, multitudinous, pulchritudinous and 98 more...
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List 15
compelling, clandestine, capacious, captivate, amicable, emulate, fetter, frugal, hackneyed, hiatus, inane, jubilant and 13 more...
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ze list
favorites, of all sorts
obscure, pretentious, debacle, vintage, ostentatious, damsel, plethora, requiem, memoir, loathe, lackadaisical, misanthropic and 82 more...
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Words to make you sound smart
duality, hence, inference, deduce, juxtapose, mundane, gregarious, plight, esoteric, austere, encompass, subsidize and 17 more...
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Vocab #12
Mrs. Wilson's Class 2012
euphemism, mundane, incongruous, condolence, stipulate, douse, runt, behoove, verbose, garbled
gcastro church people use it a lot Oct 1, 2010