Crossword clues for banality
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Banality \Ba*nal"i*ty\, n.; pl. Banalities. [F. banalit['e]. See Banal.] Something commonplace, hackneyed, or trivial; the commonplace, in speech.
The highest things were thus brought down to the
banalities of discourse.
--J. Morley.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1861, triteness, from French banalité "banality, commonplace," from banal (see banal).
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context uncountable English) The quality of being banal. 2 (context countable English) Something which is banal.
WordNet
n. a trite or obvious remark [syn: platitude, cliche, commonplace, bromide]
Wikipedia
Banality may refer to:
- Banality, the predictability of a system
- Banalité, payment(s) serfs were required to make to local nobles
- Banality (sculpture series), a series of works by Jeff Koons exhibited in 1988
Banality is a series of sculptures by American artist Jeff Koons. The works were unveiled in 1988 and have become controversial for their misuse of copyrighted images. Several editions of the sculptures have sold at auction for millions of dollars.
Usage examples of "banality".
He could be fiercely sarcastic in the manner of his namesake, he could wallow in the last banalities of sentiment, he could even be jocose and kittenish, but he knew his audience and never for a moment lost touch with it.
They came by rote, a platitude from this speech of long ago, a banality from yesterday, a quotation, an apothegm, a joke.
Most of the responses were utter banalities about nonexistent weather or ancient food or drink, or curious phrases that Malori knew were only phatic social remarks.
He revamped the opening, stressing the movieland banality of the story, as if to lure an unimaginative producer.
I was beginning to understand that it takes more than audacity of mind to free us from banality, and that the poet triumphs over routines or imposes his thought upon words by efforts quite as long and persevering as those of my work of emperor.
Charles, who certainly agreed with the sentiments the poem expressed, though he abhorred the banality of the construction.
Then to have to rise and read out her own banalities, and then to inspect the troops, knowing that each man or woman dreaded her stopping at them.
It traded banalities back and forth with Nancy, who nevertheless remained tense throughout the short conversation.
The real football reason, in all its inevitable real-reason banality, was that, over the course of weeks of dawns of watching the autosprinklers and the Pep Squad (which really did practice at dawn) practices, Orin had developed a horrible schoolboy-grade crush, complete with dilated pupils and weak knees, for a certain big-haired sophomore baton-twirler he watched twirl and strut from a distance through the diffracted spectrum of the plumed sprinklers, all the way across the field's dewy turf, a twirler who'd attended a few of the All-Athletic-Team mixers Orin and his strabismic B.
Some Substance-dependent persons, though, have already been so broken by the time they first Come In that they don't care about stuff like substitution or banality, they'll give their left nut to trade their original dependence in for robotic platitudes and pep-rally cheer.
Speech by Merlin: "The peasants have been made to believe that the annulation of the banalities (the obligation to use the public mill, wine-press, and oven, which belonged to the noble) carried along with it the loss to the noble of all these.
Never a man to waste words on banalities, the Lord of the Minwanabi turned a flat gaze upon his adviser.
By now familiar with the duties of a second adviser, he would accompany the guild messenger to a distant chamber and see him occupied with banalities until the heat passed, and the man could politely be dismissed.
Yet the self-conscious banalities he put in for openers twanged with unnecessary touches that didn't quite match the outgoing Finn Mackey personality.
Don't think about this album in terms of banalities, or in terms of a trivial rehashing of your life experiences.