common-place
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: common-places
Senses: examples: text: Common-places do properly contain nothing but general advice that remembers thoſe who conſult them of all the faces by which a ſubject may be conſidered; […]
ref: 1676, “A Discouse, in which is given an Idea of the Art of Perswasion”, in The Art of Speaking: Written in French by Messieurs de Port Royal: In Pursuance of a Former Treatise, Intituled, The Art of Thinking. Rendred into English., London: […] W. Godbid, and are to be Sold by M. Pitt, […], fourth part, section III (Of Common Places), page 95:
text: And therefore, whatever in my ſmall Reading, occurs, concerning this our Fellow-Creature, I do never fail to ſet it down, by way of Common-place; […]
ref: 1704, [Jonathan Swift], “Section I”, in A Tale of a Tub. […], London: […] John Nutt, […], →OCLC, page 287:
text: While your Highneſs is forming your ſelf for a Throne, conſider the Laws as ſo many Common-Places in your Study of the Science of Government.
ref: 1714 October 8, “Sir Walter Raleigh to Prince Henry”, in The Englishman: Being the Sequel of the Guardian, number 2, London: […] Sam. Buckley […], page 10:
text: It is odd how easily the common-places of morality or of sentiment glide off in conversation. Well, they are “exceedingly helpful,” and so Lord Avonleigh found them.
ref: 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 137:
text: Common-places that the ear grows intolerant of in conversation,—driftless paradoxes—clumsy descriptions—lack-a-daisiacal lamentations--rhodomontade—puerility—nonsense—these are the stock in trade of the German poet; […]
ref: 1836 August, “Anthologia Germanica.—No. VII. Kerner’s Lyrical Poems.”, in The Dublin University Magazine: A Literary and Political Journal, volume VIII, Dublin: William Curry, Jun. and Company, Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., London, page 144, column 2:
text: Under present social arrangements, the concord, the mutual sympathies of a family cannot extend beyond the common-places of domestic life.
ref: 1857, [John Duguid Milne], “Women of the Middle Ranks—in Their Relation with Domestic Life and Private Society—(continued)”, in Industrial and Social Position of Women, in the Middle and Lower Ranks, London: Chapman and Hall, […], section 3, page 83:
text: I am in no mood for writing common-places; and everything, after this, appears stale to me. All language is trite and cold; for there is no sign nor image that can properly shadow forth histories that have been written, as with a pen of fire, on the naked tablets of the quick and living heart.
ref: 1858, “Theodosia Sold at Public Auction”, in Shahmah in Pursuit of Freedom; or, The Branded Hand. Translated from the Original Showiah, and Edited by an American Citizen., New York, N.Y.: Thatcher & Hutchinson, page 401:
text: Christianity has so far softened the jealousies of nationality and race, that the duty of disregarding these in Christian giving has fortunately become a common-place of our teaching, though it still needs to be often and earnestly enforced.
ref: 1885 June 1, John A[lbert] Broadus, “Principles of Christian Giving”, in The Free Church Monthly and Missionary Record, number 42, page 164, column 1:
glosses: Archaic form of commonplace.