Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Not evoking interest because of overuse or repetition; hackneyed.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Rubbed; frayed; worn.
- Hence Used till so common as to have lost its novelty and interest; commonplace; worn out; hackneyed; stale.
- noun In ancient Greek music, the third tone (from the top) of the conjunct, disjunct, and extreme tetrachords. See
tetrachord .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Worn out; common; used until so common as to have lost novelty and interest; hackneyed; stale
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
denomination ofcoinage in ancient Greece equivalent to one third of astater . - noun Trite, a
genus ofspiders , found in Australia, New Zealand and Oceania, of thefamily Salticidae . - adjective Worn out;
hackneyed ; used so many times that it is no longerinteresting oreffective (often in reference to a word or phrase).
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective repeated too often; overfamiliar through overuse
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Anderson avoided what he called the trite "dancing natives on the beach," so popular in the
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(Notice how wrong trite is for this slot, how it ruins things in the worst of ways, how a different word might make it all rite/right.).
“What is Flash Fiction?”: Imagine You Were Born to Answer It 2010
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Why do fools speak in trite cliched meaningless phrasing?
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I had never heard someone use the word trite in actual conversation before.
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Maybe she's confused by your claim because she knows what the word trite actually means.
Okay. I'm up for it tonight. I'm live-blogging Hillary Night at the Democratic Convention. Ann Althouse 2008
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He is liberal in trite reflections and frigid conceits (i. 19, 55, 97, 103, 107, in fact everywhere); and his puns run through whole lines; this in fine Sanskrit style is inevitable.
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Anne McLean translates Vásquez’s generally artful prose, with the latter being an author who doesn’t indulge in trite metaphor.
A Progressive on the Prairie » Book Review: The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vásquez » Print 2010
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Anne McLean translates Vásquez’s generally artful prose, with the latter being an author who doesn’t indulge in trite metaphor.
Book Review: The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vásquez « A Progressive on the Prairie 2010
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This butterfly effect is cited so frequently that the example has become trite, which is too bad because society still behaves as if the phenomenon does not exist.
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Although the principle has its detractors – it has been called a trite and circular argument – its importance in the development of ecology can not be overstated for at least two reasons.
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