samey

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

English same

Proto-Indo-European *-kos

Proto-Germanic *-gaz

Proto-West Germanic *-g

Old English -iġ

Middle English -y

English -y

English samey

From same + -y.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈseɪmi/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪmi

Adjective

samey (not comparable)

1. (informal, chiefly UK) Exhibiting sameness, without variety; monotonous.
   • 2014 June 24, Feargus O'Sullivan, “The Pernicious Realities of 'Artwashing'”, in Bloomberg‎^[1]:

     Nowadays, its apartments go to finance workers who work nearby, while its bars are samey places encircled by moats of urine.

   • 2019 May 23, Tony Naylor, “No wonder Jamie’s went bust: Brits have lost their appetite for samey chains”, in The Guardian‎^[2], archived from the original on 5 August 2019:

     This was a bubble, a mass delusion among operators convinced that Britain’s appetite for samey chain restaurants was insatiable.

   • 2025 June 3, Mark O’Connell, “‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube star”, in The Guardian‎^[3], archived from the original on 7 June 2025:

     Of course, there are only so many formerly blind people you can watch being given the gift of sight before it starts getting a little samey.

Derived terms

• sameyness

Translations

without variety

• German: eintönig (de), irgendwie gleich, irgendwie ähnlich
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: ensformig

Further reading

• Eric Partridge (2005), “samey”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volume 2 (J–Z), London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 1664.

Anagrams

• Mayes, Mayse, aymes, seamy, syame