trite

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“
That is trite, and is perhaps the reason why it has never had so compelling an attraction for them.

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Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. adjective Lacking power to evoke interest through overuse or repetition; hackneyed.
  2. adjective Archaic Frayed or worn out by use.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (3)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

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Examples (50)

  • It was short, trite, a brief statement of his intention to end his useless life. —  A Hydra with Six Heads - Josephine Bell - 1970
  • At length the right words came to him; the trite, the traditional sentence uttered by countless lips of generations of baffled and impassioned Englishmen: “I think I shall go for a short walk.” But first he walked only as far as his hostel. —  The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh
  • Without being trite, as we've addressed this topic before on more than one occasion, an attempt to predict the magnitude of these expenses at this juncture would be pointless as we feel the ongoing questions asking us to predict future legal spend have been. —  Fables of the reconstruction
  • But of course it is "little things" that come across as trite, and at the same time, on the whole, make up the whole that is life in this world, and even more so, the next. —  Right Wing News
  • It "takes time", as the trite-but-true saying goes. —  Stepcase Lifehack
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This word has been looked up 299 times.

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Related

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

Suggestions Wordniks Suggest

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

hackneyed ·  trivial ·  insipid ·  banal ·  uninteresting ·  far-fetched ·  prosaic ·  pithy ·  wearisome ·  every-day ·  commonplace ·  pointless
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. Latin trītus, from past participle of terere, to wear out; see terə-1 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. = Italian trito, from Latin tritus, past participle of terere, rub, wear, = Old Bulgarian trieti, trŭti = Servian trti = Bohem, trzhíti = Polish trzeć = Russian teretĭ = Lithuanian triti, trinti, rub. From the L. terere are also ult. English triturate, triture, try, etc., contrite, detritus, etc.
  2. Greek τρίτη, fem, of τρίτος, third: see third.
 

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/ˈtraɪti/
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