Casual vs Commonplace - What's the difference?
casual | commonplace |
Happening by chance.
* (Washington Irving)
Coming without regularity; occasional or incidental.
* (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
Employed irregularly.
* , chapter=17
, title= Careless.
* 2007 , Nick Holland, The Girl on the Bus (page 117)
Happening or coming to pass without design.
* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=8 Informal, relaxed.
Designed for informal or everyday use.
(British, NZ) A worker who is only working for a company occasionally, not as its permanent employee.
A soldier temporarily at a place of duty, usually en route to another place of duty.
(UK) A member of a group of football hooligans who wear expensive designer clothing to avoid police attention; see .
One who receives relief for a night in a parish to which he does not belong; a vagrant.
A player of casual games.
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:
As adjectives the difference between casual and commonplace
is that casual is happening by chance while commonplace is ordinary; having no remarkable characteristics.As nouns the difference between casual and commonplace
is that casual is (british|nz) a worker who is only working for a company occasionally, not as its permanent employee while commonplace is a platitude or.As a verb commonplace is
to make a commonplace book.casual
English
Alternative forms
* casuall (obsolete)Adjective
(en adjective)- casual breaks, in the general system
- a constant habit, rather than a casual gesture
The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything. In a moment she had dropped to the level of a casual labourer.}}
- I removed my jacket and threw it casually over the back of the settee.
citation, passage=It was a casual sneer, obviously one of a long line. There was hatred behind it, but of a quiet, chronic type, nothing new or unduly virulent, and he was taken aback by the flicker of amazed incredulity that passed over the younger man's ravaged face.}}
Derived terms
* casually * casualization * smart casualSynonyms
*(happening by chance) accidental, fortuitous, incidental, occasional *(happening or coming to pass without design) unexpected * informalAntonyms
*(happening by chance) inevitable, necessary *(happening or coming to pass without design) expected, scheduled * ceremonial, formalNoun
(en noun)References
*Anagrams
* ----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)