Barren vs Commonplace - What's the difference?
barren | commonplace | Related terms |
(label) Unable to bear children; sterile.
Of poor fertility, infertile; not producing vegetation.
* (1800–1859)
* '>citation
Bleak.
*{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Michael Arlen), title=
, passage=As they turned into Hertford Street they startled a robin from the poet's head on a barren fountain, and he fled away with a cameo note.}}
Unproductive; fruitless; unprofitable; empty.
* (1796-1859)
* (Jonathan Swift) (1667–1745)
* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=September 2, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC
, title= Mentally dull; stupid.
* (William Shakespeare), (Hamlet), III.ii. ca. 1602
An area of low fertility and habitation, a desolate place.
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 barren and commonplace
is that barren is unable to bear children; sterile while commonplace is ordinary; having no remarkable characteristics.As nouns the difference between barren and commonplace
is that barren is an area of low fertility and habitation, a desolate place while commonplace is a platitude or cliché.As a verb commonplace is
to make a commonplace book.barren
English
Adjective
(en-adj)- I silently wept as my daughter's husband rejected her. What would she do now that she was no longer a maiden but also barren ?
- barren mountain tracts
“Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, chapter=Ep./4/2
- brilliant but barren reveries
- Some schemes will appear barren of hints and matter.
Bulgaria 0-3 England, passage=Rooney had been suffered a barren spell for England with only one goal in 15 games but he was in no mood to ignore the gifts on offer in front of an increasingly subdued Bulgarian support.}}
- Set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too.
Synonyms
* sterileAntonyms
* fertile * fruitfulNoun
(en noun)- The pine barrens are a site lonely enough to suit any hermit.
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)