Trivial vs Commonplace - What's the difference?
trivial | commonplace |
Ignorable; of little significance or value.
* 1848, , Bantam Classics (1997), 16:
Commonplace, ordinary.
* De Quincey
Concerned with or involving trivia.
(biology) Relating to or designating the name of a species; specific as opposed to generic.
(mathematics) Of, relating to, or being the simplest possible case.
(mathematics) Self-evident.
Pertaining to the trivium.
(philosophy) Indistinguishable in case of truth or falsity.
(obsolete) Any of the three liberal arts forming the trivium.
Ordinary; having no remarkable characteristics.
* 1824 , Sir (Walter Scott), , ch. 7:
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1
, passage=In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned.}}
* 1911 , (w), (Under Western Eyes) , ch. 1:
A platitude or .
* 1899 , , Active Service , ch. 17:
* 1910 , , His Hour , ch. 4:
Something that is ordinary.
* 1891 , , "A Case of Identity" in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes :
A memorandum; something to be frequently consulted or referred to.
* Jonathan Swift
A commonplace book.
To make a commonplace book.
To enter in a commonplace book, or to reduce to general heads.
* Felton
(obsolete) To utter commonplaces; to indulge in platitudes.
* 1910 , , His Hour , ch. 4:
In obsolete|lang=en terms the difference between trivial and commonplace
is that trivial is (obsolete) any of the three liberal arts forming the trivium while commonplace is (obsolete) to utter commonplaces; to indulge in platitudes.As adjectives the difference between trivial and commonplace
is that trivial is ignorable; of little significance or value while commonplace is ordinary; having no remarkable characteristics.As nouns the difference between trivial and commonplace
is that trivial is (obsolete) any of the three liberal arts forming the trivium while commonplace is a platitude or.As a verb commonplace is
to make a commonplace book.trivial
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- "All which details, I have no doubt, Jones , who reads this book at his Club, will pronounce to be excessively foolish, trivial , twaddling, and ultra-sentimental."
- As a scholar, meantime, he was trivial , and incapable of labour.
Synonyms
* (of little significance) ignorable, negligible, triflingAntonyms
* nontrivial * important * significant * radical * fundamentalDerived terms
* triviaNoun
(en noun)- (Skelton)
- (Wood)
commonplace
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- "This Mr. Tyrrel," she said, in a tone of authoritative decision, "seems after all a very ordinary sort of person, quite a commonplace man."
- I could get hold of nothing but of some commonplace phrases, those futile phrases that give the measure of our impotence before each other's trials.
Synonyms
* routine * undistinguished * unexceptional * See alsoAntonyms
* distinguished * inimitable * uniqueNoun
(en noun)- Finally he began to mutter some commonplaces which meant nothing particularly.
- And something angered Tamara in the way the Prince assisted in all this, out-commonplacing her friend in commonplaces with the suavest politeness.
- "My dear fellow," said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence."
- Whatever, in my reading, occurs concerning this our fellow creature, I do never fail to set it down by way of commonplace .
Verb
(commonplac)- I do not apprehend any difficulty in collecting and commonplacing an universal history from the historians.
- And something angered Tamara in the way the Prince assisted in all this, out-commonplacing her friend in commonplaces with the suavest politeness.
- (Francis Bacon)