Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A trite or banal remark or statement, especially one expressed as if it were original or significant. See Synonyms at cliché.
- n. Lack of originality; triteness.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Flatness; dullness; insipidity of thought; triteness.
- n. A trite, dull, or stupid remark; especially, such a remark uttered as if it were a novelty; a truism.
Wiktionary
- n. An often-quoted saying that is supposed to be meaningful but has become unoriginal or hackneyed through overuse; a cliché.
- n. Unoriginality; triteness.
- n. A claim that is trivially true, to the point of being uninteresting.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The quality or state of being flat, thin, or insipid; flat commonness; triteness; staleness of ideas of language.
- n. A thought or remark which is flat, dull, trite, or weak; a truism; a commonplace.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a trite or obvious remark
Etymologies
- From French, from Old French plat ‘flat’. (Wiktionary)
- French, from plat, flat, from Old French; see plate. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Thinking man's therapy, about philosophical counselors and their bringing eternal wisdom to bear on mental health problems, I was reminded that many years ago Patricia Pliner, a professor friend of mine, and I invented what we called platitude therapy.”
The Washington Post: National, World & D.C. Area News and Headlines - The Washington Post
“And that ridiculous platitude is literally everything you need to know about Sarah Palin.”
“Besides, as your able Ambassador in Washington, Hume Wrong, said the other day, a platitude is but a "frozen truth" which must be repeated from time to time.”
“The platitude is this, in the modern world peace and prosperity are indivisible.”
“Morley once warned the Emersonians that a platitude is not transformed into a profundity by being dressed up as a conundrum.”
“During the last century the thesis that language is essentially conventional has played a central role within philosophy of language, and has even been called a platitude (Lewis 1969).”
“And, strictly speaking, a platitude is a “banal, trite, or stale remark” Merriam-Webster.com.”
Watching the Iraq Hearings With Petraeus and Crocker - The Lede Blog - NYTimes.com
“Compared with this creative statesmanship, the administering of a routine or the battle for a platitude is a very simple affair.”
“The platitude was the best that I could muster to my tongue.”
“What I mean by a platitude is a truth so obvious that it is devoid of inspiration, and has become one of the things that every one does so instinctively, that no reminder of them is necessary.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘platitude’.
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
zealot, wistful, welter, wary, whimsical, warranted, vortex, vivisection, volatile, vitiate, viscous, visage and 787 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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SAT 2
platitude, parsimonious, perspicacious, catharsis, captious, munificent, penurious, arid, portentous, ossified, nascent, perfidy and 13 more...
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phrontistery - p
from phrontistery.info
pabouche, pabulous, pabulum, pacable, pace, pachydermia, pachyglossal, pachymeter, pachynsis, paciferous, pacificate, pactolian and 1766 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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From reading
Collected from reading
venerate, reprobate, reticent, adoration, ethereal, ephemeral, equivocal, contumacious, heinous, solicitous, agnostic, aberration and 335 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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GRE Study guide
Going through the Magoosh website, words I pulled from the verbal section. 2012.
magnanimous, correlate, anglicized, simulacrum, tantamount, obsequiousness, subterfuge, vehement, vociferous, benign, concomitant, veracity and 83 more...
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P
letters starting with p
predicament, presumptuous, predilection, plausible, preeminent, plaintive, paragon, partisan, pathological, paucity, pedantic, penchant and 28 more...
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sat 3
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man gre
abase, abeyance, abreast, abscission, abscond, abyss, accede, accretion, acerbic, acidulous, acumen, adulterate and 483 more...
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GRE
GRE words from Princeton Review guide, ETS GRE Book from 2010 (for revised test), New Yorker/NY Times articles.
sycophant, obsequious, volubility, equanimity, enervate, effrontery, impertinent, platitude, impudence, quiescent, propitiate, equivocate and 124 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for platitude.
oroboros "A web-footed, duck-billed mammal's approach to life." --Frazz cartoon Apr 10, 2010
Prolagus PLATITUDE, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. A desiccated epigram.
(Ambrose Bierce) Sep 11, 2008
mollusque Great question, sionnach! Great comment, sarra! Mar 15, 2008
sarra plongitude should be the quantifier for how sonorous a ruler is when held atop a table and made to vibrate! Mar 15, 2008
sionnach How come platitude is a word, but plongitude isn't? Mar 15, 2008