Pedestrian vs Commonplace - What's the difference?
pedestrian | commonplace | Synonyms |
(not comparable) Of or intended for those who are walking.
(comparable) Ordinary, dull; everyday; unexceptional.
Somebody walking rather than using a vehicle; somebody traveling on foot on or near a roadway.
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 pedestrian and commonplace
is that pedestrian is of or intended for those who are walking while commonplace is ordinary; having no remarkable characteristics.As nouns the difference between pedestrian and commonplace
is that pedestrian is somebody walking rather than using a vehicle; somebody traveling on foot on or near a roadway while commonplace is a platitude or cliché.As a verb commonplace is
to make a commonplace book.pedestrian
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- pedestrian crossing
- His manner of dress was pedestrian but tidy.
Usage notes
The use of pedestrian'' in the sense of ''ordinary'', ''dull'', ''everyday'', etc. has begun to become unfashionable in the 21st century, mainly due to the desire in many urban locations around the world to promote walking and cycling as healthy, less polluting, and less space consuming alternatives to driving. Young people in particular are unlikely to use ''pedestrian'' in the ''ordinary'' or ''dull sense.Noun
(en noun)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)