platitude

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: plat=i=tude

CIDE DICTIONARY

platitude, n. [F., from plat flat. See Plate.].

•  The quality or state of being flat, thin, or insipid; flat commonness; triteness; staleness of ideas of language.  [1913 Webster]

  "To hammer one golden grain of wit into a sheet of infinite platitude."  [1913 Webster]
•  A thought or remark which is flat, dull, trite, or weak; a truism; a commonplace.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

platitude, n.
1 a trite or commonplace remark, esp. one solemnly delivered.
2 the use of platitudes; dullness, insipidity.

Derivative

platitudinize v.intr. (also -ise). platitudinous adj.

Etymology

F f. plat flat, after certitude, multitudinous, etc.

DEVIL DICTIONARY

platitude

n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a dullard. A fossil sentiment in artificial rock. A moral without the fable. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A demi-tasse of milk-and-mortality. The Pope's-nose of a featherless peacock. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.

THESAURUS

platitude

abstraction, banality, bromide, chestnut, cliche, commonplace, commonplace expression, corn, familiar tune, general idea, generalization, generalized proposition, glittering generality, hackneyed expression, hackneyed saying, inanity, insipidity, lieu commun, locus communis, mawkishness, old joke, old saw, old song, old story, prosaicism, prosaism, prose, reiteration, retold story, rubber stamp, sentimentality, shibboleth, stereotyped saying, sweeping statement, tag, tired cliche, trite saying, triticism, truism, twice-told tale, vapidity

ROGET THESAURUS

platitude

Dullness

N dullness, heaviness, flatness, infestivity &c, stupidity want of originality, dearth of ideas, prose, matter of fact, heavy book, conte a dormir debout, platitude, dull, dull as ditch water, unentertaining, uninteresting, flat, dry as dust, unfunny, unlively, logy, unimaginative, insulse, dry as dust, prosy, prosing, prosaic, matter of fact, commonplace, pedestrian, pointless, weary stale flat and unprofitable, stupid, slow, flat, insipid, vapid, humdrum, monotonous, melancholic, stolid plodding, boring, tiresome, tedious, davus sum non Aedipus, deadly dull and boring, DDB.

Unmeaningness

N meaninglessness, unmeaningness, scrabble, empty sound, dead letter, vox et praeterea nihil, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, nonsense, utter nonsense, gibberish, jargon, jabber, mere words, hocus-pocus, fustian, rant, bombast, balderdash, palaver, flummery, verbiage, babble, baverdage, baragouin, platitude, niaiserie, inanity, flap-doodle, rigmarole, rodomontade, truism, nugae canorae, twaddle, twattle, fudge, trash, garbage, humbug, poppy-cock, stuff, stuff and nonsense, bosh, rubbish, moonshine, wish-wash, fiddle- faddle, absurdity, vagueness, boilerplate, clich_¬, unmeaning, meaningless, senseless, nonsensical, void of sense, inexpressive, unexpressive, vacant, not significant, insignificant, trashy, washy, trumpery, trivial, fiddle-faddle, twaddling, quibbling, unmeant, not expressed, tacit, inexpressible, undefinable, incommunicable.