Typical vs Commonplace - What's the difference?
typical | commonplace |
Capturing the overall sense of a thing.
Characteristically representing something by form, group, idea or type.
Normal, average; to be expected.
* {{quote-book, year=2006, author=
, title=Internal Combustion
, chapter=2 Anything that is typical, normal, or standard.
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 typical and commonplace
is that typical is capturing the overall sense of a thing while commonplace is ordinary; having no remarkable characteristics.As nouns the difference between typical and commonplace
is that typical is anything that is typical, normal, or standard while commonplace is a platitude or.As a verb commonplace is
to make a commonplace book.typical
English
Alternative forms
* typicall (obsolete)Adjective
(en adjective)citation, passage=One typical Grecian kiln engorged one thousand muleloads of juniper wood in a single burn. Fifty such kilns would devour six thousand metric tons of trees and brush annually.}}
Synonyms
* See alsoAntonyms
* atypicalDerived terms
* typicality * typically * typicalnessSee also
* gestalt * gist * resemblance * emblematic * prefigurative * distinctiveNoun
(en noun)- Antipsychotic drugs can be divided into typicals and atypicals.
- Among the moths, typicals were more common than melanics.
External links
* *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)