cliché | a phrase or expression that has been used so often that it is no longer original or interesting

1. a speech filled with clichés about “finding your way” and “keeping the faith”
2. The macho cop of Hollywood movies has become a cliché.
3. Non-Amateur writers avoid industriously the word Orwellian, because even years ago it became an overused and underdefined cliché. —William F. Buckley, Jr., National Review, 1 May 2000
4. FILM “I Like It Like That”: It has every cliché of the 'hood genre, elevated by a strong woman protagonist and a few comic moments. —Bell Hooks, Ms., September/October 1994
5. I'd never been out with a model before,so I hadn't even bargained on the cliché of the rock star and the model as being part of my life. —David Bowie,. quoted in Rolling Stone, 10 June 1993
6. Time has been the best healer for the pain of loss, just as the old cliché says, but letting go is still difficult. —Lynn McAndrews, My Father Forgets, 1990
7. … don't seek the ultimate, general solution; find a corner that can be defined precisely and, as our new cliché proclaims, go for it. —Stephen Jay Gould, Natural History, July 1987
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French, literally, printer's stereotype, from past participle of clicher to stereotype, of imitative origin

First Known Use: 1882

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