cliché

cli·ché

also cli·che C0404300 (klē-shā′)n.1. A trite or overused expression or idea: "Even while the phrase was degenerating to cliché in ordinary public use ... scholars were giving it increasing attention" (Anthony Brandt).2. A person or character whose behavior is predictable or superficial: "There is a young explorer ... who turns out not to be quite the cliche expected" (John Crowley).adj. Usage Problem Clichéd.

[French, past participle of clicher, to stereotype (imitative of the sound made when the matrix is dropped into molten metal to make a stereotype plate).]Synonyms: cliché, bromide, platitude, truism
These nouns denote an expression or idea that has lost its originality or force through overuse: a short story weakened by clichés; the bromide that we are what we eat; a eulogy full of platitudes; a once-original thought that is now a truism.Usage Note: The use of cliché as an adjective meaning "clichéd" goes back to the 1950s. Nonetheless, this usage is traditionally considered improper, and the majority of the Usage Panel agrees with that assessment. In 2011, 79% of the Panel considered the sentence It would sound very cliché to say he died as he lived, helping people to be unacceptable. About a fifth of the Panelists, however, found this usage either somewhat or completely acceptable. As is the case with most nouns, the use of cliché in compounds, such as cliché-ridden, meaning "full of clichés," is perfectly acceptable. The use of cliché as an adjective is alluring because English has borrowed some é-final adjectives from French participles, such as passé and recherché. Because the overwhelming use of cliché is as a noun, however, the English adjective was originally formed directly from that noun by adding -d, the same process that gives us words such as barefaced, single-spaced, and fated.

cliché

(ˈkliːʃeɪ) n1. (Linguistics) a word or expression that has lost much of its force through overexposure, as for example the phrase: it's got to get worse before it gets better. 2. an idea, action, or habit that has become trite from overuse3. (Printing, Lithography & Bookbinding) printing chiefly Brit a stereotype or electrotype plate[C19: from French, from clicher to stereotype; imitative of the sound made by the matrix when it is dropped into molten metal] ˈclichéd, ˈcliché'd adj

cli•ché

or cli•che

(kliˈʃeɪ, klɪ-)

n. 1. a trite, stereotyped expression, as sadder but wiser, or strong as an ox. 2. a trite or hackneyed plot, character development, use of form, musical style, etc. 3. anything that has become trite or commonplace through overuse. adj. 4. clichéd. [1825–35; < French: stereotype plate, stencil, cliché, n. use of past participle of clicher to make such a plate, said to be imitative of the sound of the metal pressed against the matrix]

Thesaurus

Noun

cliche - a trite or obvious remarkbanality, commonplace, platitude, bromidecomment, remark, input - a statement that expresses a personal opinion or belief or adds information; "from time to time she contributed a personal comment on his account"truism - an obvious truth

cliché

noun platitude, stereotype, commonplace, banality, truism, bromide, old saw, hackneyed phrase, chestnut (informal) I've learned that the cliché about life not being fair is true.

cliché

nounA trite expression or idea:banality, bromide, commonplace, platitude, stereotype, truism.

Translations

陈词滥调

cliché

(ˈkliːʃei) , ((American) kli:ˈʃei) noun a phrase which has been used too often, and has become meaningless. 陈词滥调

Cliché

in language, one of a number of synonymous expressions often used to convey a certain meaning. The user of a cliché perceives it as a generally accepted turn of speech stipulated by the linguistic norm. Often a cliché that originated as a figurative or stylistically colored expression loses its figurativeness or stylistic coloring: for example, in sleznye mol’by (“tearful entreaties”), sleznye (“tearful”) functions as a commonplace epithet of the word mol’by (“entreaties”), and the expression is much more stilted than either nastoichivye or unizhennye pros’by (“urgent” or “humble requests”). Clichés include stereotyped comparisons and metaphors—for example, gorod (“city”) as muraveinik (“anthill”) and serdtse (“heart”) as fakel (“torch”).

Clichés are particularly overused in journalistic language and official language in general. Their excessive and inappropriate use must be fought. Language overburdened with clichés has often been the butt of satirical works—for example, parodies of clichés in M. Zoshchenko, M. Bulgakov, and Il’f and Petrov.

Cliché

a means of expression whose repeated use in speech or literature (mainly in fiction) is perceived as a symptom of stereotyped thought or alleged (but not genuine) stylistic beauty.

Fashionable words, phrases, sentences, themes, plots, and stock images, as well as the very inertia of the devices of “ready-made artistry,” influence everyone who uses language. Clichés are most often found in formulaic artistic speech, for example, the stock metaphor “black gold” (in reference to slaves, coal, and oil), and in some title formats, such as the use of “when” to begin a title or the use of a series of three nouns in the nominative case. The danger of cliché lurks in many of the “author’s excursions” into childhood found in modern Soviet literature, in series of images of roses and nightingales in Turkic poetry, and in the use of rhymes of the type moia—ne taia. An uncritical acceptance of clichés hinders creative individuality, making the writer and any speaker the victim of an inertia of style.

In various spheres of communications—daily life, science, publicist writing, and literature—the relation among clichés, genuinely expressive language, and stylistically neutral elements of language (which may likewise be constantly repeated in speech) is not always the same. A sensitive artist always finds ways to transform clichés. In literature, for example, the fashionable word okoem (vista) is surrounded with subtle irony in a line by the poet A. Mezhirov: Vladyki i tsari gliadiat za okoem (Rulers and tsars gaze beyond the vista). The tendency of a cliché to gain currency and become a general “rule” is at odds with the writer’s desire to create his personal “poetic rules” and to achieve “novelty of material and device” (V. V. Mayakovsky, How Are Verses Made?). The boundaries between formulaic units of artistic language and common linguistic phraseology free from banality of usage are fluid. Thus, the expression nevooruzhennym glazom (with the naked eye) can still be taken as a cliché, but dictionaries have already recorded the transformation into a stylistically neutral phrase.

REFERENCES

Kostomarov, V. G. Russkii iazyk na gazetnoi polose. Moscow, 1971.
Shmelev, D. N. Slovo i obraz. Moscow, 1964.
[Grigor’ev, V. P.] “Khudozhestvennaia rech’.” In Kniga o russkom iazyke. Moscow, 1969.

V. P. GRIGOREV

See Cliché