Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Very familiar because of repeated telling.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Told or related twice; hence, trite; hackneyed.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • From there we’ll move with slow cautious steps to gentle verbal sparring, twice-told tales, descriptions of the scarred and darkest places of our old and worn-out souls.

    Excerpt: The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer 2010

  • It's impossible to write a history of neoconservatism without recapitulating twice-told tales.

    Rich Lowry's review of books on neocons and the conservative movement 2010

  • Still, this is more or less an important episode of Superman, despite being the twice-told tale told twice again (and it won't be the last time, either.)

    Light the blue touchpaper and retire to a safe distance 2008

  • It's just that his twice-told tale would be a lot better if its author knew when to shut up.

    'The Alienist Ii' 2008

  • But, as I stood wondering, behold, she gave an order to one of her hand-maids and the girl brought me the sum of the collected monies twice-told.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • At this point in his story Matthiessen runs the danger of revisiting twice-told material.

    An Epic of the Everglades Dirda, Michael 2008

  • She replied, ‘For the tale of all this gold twice-told;’ whereat I was confounded and said to myself, ‘This is impossible.’

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • As a hungry young hopeful, raised in the Parkside Houses and Co-op City, Price got off to an admirable start with The Wanderers (1974), a loose-knit Bronx myth cycle, set in the early Sixties, that reads like a bunch of twice-told tales honed and crafted to wow upstaters, hillbillies, Californians, and other rubes, about life in the bad old Bronx.

    In Priceland Chabon, Michael 2008

  • But not half as well on the second occasion as on the first; for, a twice-told white one seems almost to become a black one, when you are not used to it

    Our Mutual Friend 2004

  • Moreover, if anything be more tedious than a twice-told tale, is it not the repetition of one half told?

    My Tropic Isle 2003

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