trite

See also: Trite and трите

English

WOTD – 19 November 2015

Pronunciation

• enPR: trīt
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /tɹaɪt/
  • (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /tɹaɪt/, (Canadian raising) [tɹʌɪt]

    • Audio (California):

      (file)

  • (General Australian) IPA^(key): /tɹɑet/

    • Audio (Queensland):

      (file)

  • (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /tɹaɪt/, [tɹɑe̯t]
• Homophone: tryte
• Rhymes: -aɪt

Etymology 1

From Latin trītus (“worn out”), perfect passive participle of terō (“to wear away, wear out”).

Adjective

trite (comparative triter, superlative tritest)

1. (often in reference to a word or phrase) used so many times that it is commonplace, or no longer interesting or effective; worn out, hackneyed.

   Synonyms: banal, clichéd, played out; see also Thesaurus:hackneyed

   • 1897, W. B. Kimberly, History of West Australia : A Narrative of Her Past together with Biographies of Her Leading Men:

     It is a trite saying in a young country that anyone starting out in life with the determination to become wealthy will have his wish gratified.

   • 1994, Anthony Bergin, “The High Seas Regime – Pacific Trends and Developments”, in James Crawford, Donald R. Rothwell, editors, The Law of the Sea in the Asian Pacific Region: Developments and Prospects, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, →ISBN, page 183:

     It is trite history – and trite law – to say that the law of the sea since that time [World War II] reflects a history of coastal State expansion.

   • 2007, Danielle Corsetto, Girls with Slingshots: 267‎^[1]:

     McPedro the cactus: How to woo a woman! On yehr fahrst date, don’t bring her cut flowers! That’s inhumane! And trite!

   • 2025 March 4, Marina Hyde, “It’s With Love, Meghan – not just a TV show but a landmark piece of art. And not in a good way”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     This show is sensationally absurd and trite, and if you watch it, you know it.

2. (law) So well established as to be beyond debate: trite law.
   • 2017, Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Taucar v Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, 2017 ONSC 2604:

     It is trite to say that the mere fact that a decision does not favour the applicant or that the applicant disagrees with the decision does not establish that the decision is tainted with bias.

Derived terms

• trite law
• tritely
• triteness
• tritish
• untrite

Translations

used so many times that it is commonplace, or no longer interesting or effective — see also hackneyed,‎ worn-out,‎ stereotyped,‎ trivial

• Bulgarian: изтъркан (bg) (iztǎrkan), банален (bg) (banalen)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 陳腐 / 陈腐 (zh) (chénfǔ), 平凡 (zh) (píngfán)

• Czech: banální (cs), otřelý, otřepaný m, vyčpělý m
• Dutch: afgezaagd (nl), banaal (nl), versleten (nl)
• Finnish: banaali (fi), kulunut (fi), lattea (fi)
• French: banal (fr), éculé (fr), trivial (fr)
• German: abgedroschen (de), banal (de), nichtssagend (de), platt (de)
• Greek: κοινότοπος (el) m (koinótopos), τετριμμένος (el) m (tetrimménos)
• Hungarian: banális (hu), elcsépelt (hu), elkoptatott (hu)
• Ido: triviala (io)
• Irish: seanchaite
• Japanese: ありふれた (ja) (arifureta), 陳腐な (ja) (ちんぷな, chinpu-na)
• Manx: ceaut, shenn-cheaut
• Norwegian: trivielt
• Portuguese: banal (pt), gasto (pt)
• Russian: бана́льный (ru) (banálʹnyj), изби́тый (ru) (izbítyj), шабло́нный (ru) (šablónnyj), зата́сканный (ru) (zatáskannyj)
• Scottish Gaelic: lom
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: ба̀на̄лан, излизан, о̀тр̄ца̄н

  Latin: bànālan (sh), izlizan (sh), òtr̄cān (sh)

• Slovene: zguljen
• Spanish: manido (es), tópico (es), trillado (es)
• Swedish: banal (sv), sliten (sv), trivial (sv), utnött (sv), utsliten (sv)
• Ukrainian: банальний (uk) m (banalʹnyj), стоптаний m (stoptanyj), заїжджений m (zajiždženyj)

See also

• cliché

Etymology 2

This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term, particularly:

Noun

trite (plural trites)

1. A denomination of coinage in ancient Greece equivalent to one third of a stater.

Translations

denomination of ancient Greek coinage

Etymology 3

Unadapted borrowing from Latin tritē, from Ancient Greek τρίτη (trítē, literally “third [string]”).

Noun

trite (plural trites)

1. (music, music theory) In Ancient Greek musical theory, the lower-pitched of the two movable notes in the farther tetrachord on a lyre, pitched lower than the paranete and higher than the paramese.

Usage notes

• The strings/pitches from lowest-pitched (nearest the player) to highest-pitched (farthest from the player) were the hypate, parhypate, lichanos, mese, paramese, trite, paranete and nete, grouped into two tetrachords, the nearer one stretching from hypate to mese and the farther one stretching from paramese to nete. The outer two notes in a tetrachord were fixed in pitch but the inner two notes could be tuned differently.

Anagrams

• tetri, titer, titre

Italian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtri.te/
• Rhymes: -ite
• Hyphenation: trì‧te

Adjective

trite

1. feminine plural of trito

Anagrams

• retti, ritte, tetri

Latin

Participle

trīte

1. vocative masculine singular of trītus

References

• “trite”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “trite”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

Tocharian B

Etymology

Compare Tocharian A trit

Adjective

trite

1. third