variants
also cliches
as in tropes
an idea or expression that has been used by many people
try to write a love story without resorting to well-worn clichés
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
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Recent Examples of clichés
In this section, artists Wendy Red Star, Omar Victor Diop, Yuki Kihara, Frida Orupabo, and Dimakatso Mathopa mine the tropes and cliches borne of these images, and through satire and recontextualization, offer works that center their own empowerment and subjectivity.
—
The Editors Of Artnews, ARTnews.com, 10 June 2026
But for Maria Poveromo, a soon-to-be Woodbridge High School graduate, some academic cliches still ring true.
—Victoria Le, Oc Register, 29 May 2026
Club Kid runs right up to and then darts around so many potential cliches in a way that’s really satisfying.
—Rachel Handler, Vulture, 26 May 2026
Sure, Josh’s seasonal arc becomes finding a new mate before the next hibernation, but the episodic stories soon settle into all-too-familiar rom-com cliches, without enough contrast from the animal’s POV to provide much enlightenment for the human audience.
—Ben Travers, IndieWire, 22 May 2026
Harvard may get a more empowering storyline than his florist-hairdresser-retail-clerk predecessors, but the humor is redolent of the same punishing cliches.
—Theater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 20 May 2026
Every Mother’s Day, politicians spout cliches celebrating all that moms do for our families.
—Nicole Varma, The Orlando Sentinel, 9 May 2026
The workforce warnings, in particular, are getting louder, with a mix of smart alerts and a cacophony of cliches.
—Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Fortune, 29 Apr. 2026
There’s a reason for the myriad cliches in baseball.
—Gabriel Burns, AJC.com, 15 Apr. 2026
The Editors Of Artnews, ARTnews.com, 10 June 2026
But for Maria Poveromo, a soon-to-be Woodbridge High School graduate, some academic cliches still ring true.
—Victoria Le, Oc Register, 29 May 2026
Club Kid runs right up to and then darts around so many potential cliches in a way that’s really satisfying.
—Rachel Handler, Vulture, 26 May 2026
Sure, Josh’s seasonal arc becomes finding a new mate before the next hibernation, but the episodic stories soon settle into all-too-familiar rom-com cliches, without enough contrast from the animal’s POV to provide much enlightenment for the human audience.
—Ben Travers, IndieWire, 22 May 2026
Harvard may get a more empowering storyline than his florist-hairdresser-retail-clerk predecessors, but the humor is redolent of the same punishing cliches.
—Theater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 20 May 2026
Every Mother’s Day, politicians spout cliches celebrating all that moms do for our families.
—Nicole Varma, The Orlando Sentinel, 9 May 2026
The workforce warnings, in particular, are getting louder, with a mix of smart alerts and a cacophony of cliches.
—Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Fortune, 29 Apr. 2026
There’s a reason for the myriad cliches in baseball.
—Gabriel Burns, AJC.com, 15 Apr. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for clichés
Noun
-
The life of the 28-year-old Euphoria breakout was engulfed in controversy last year over a campaign for the fashion brand American Eagle that some accused of trafficking in racist tropes.—
Ryan Coleman,
Entertainment Weekly,
15 June 2026
-
Maclean’s work traffics in deep fakes and glitch aesthetics, rainbow cuteness and the tropes of pulp—but these are set against violent dystopias and a world of cruelties borne, especially, by women (see her 2018 video Make Me Up as an example).—
Eugenie Brinkema,
ARTnews.com,
14 June 2026
Noun
-
Teenagers are tested on more advanced skills, such as making generalizations from a reading passage and comparing information from charts and graphs.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
10 June 2026
-
Of course, if the AI does generalize, the difficulty is that the AI generalizations about mental health might be off base.—
Lance Eliot,
Forbes.com,
1 June 2026
Noun
-
The second was that, along with the platitudes about resilience, attendees were unusually honest about the Gulf’s predicament.—
Mohammed Sergie,
semafor.com,
4 June 2026
-
Not the word kindness, not the platitudes.—
Théoden Janes,
Charlotte Observer,
3 June 2026
Noun
-
Spain’s success over the past five years has undermined many long-standing political-economic truisms.—
Rogé Karma,
The Atlantic,
1 June 2026
-
But the movie’s soft-hearted underbelly fails to support that reading, and by the time the story finally arrives at its final moments, the unsparing cynicism that supplied its initial lift has been dragged back down to Earth by the weight of bland truisms.—
David Ehrlich,
IndieWire,
15 Oct. 2025
Noun
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As far back as the Victorian era, exchanging a few banalities was part of a veritable social code—a way of signaling both politeness and boundaries.—
Jeanne Ballion,
Vogue,
27 Dec. 2025
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Written by Noah Oppenheim, Bigelow’s real-time thriller about the banalities and actualities of a fictional-in-premise-only nuclear attack on the United States is Netflix’s best horse in the race at the Oscars this year.—
Ryan Lattanzio,
IndieWire,
19 Sep. 2025
Noun
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And research suggests such stereotypes aren’t far off.—
Anirban Mukhopadhyay,
Scientific American,
10 June 2026
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This includes studying how children develop false stereotypes about who can become a scientist.—
Remy Dou,
The Conversation,
10 June 2026
Noun
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The president used similar bromides in private calls to assuage allies, including Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson, before launching the war in February, according to people familiar with the conversations.—
Vivian Salama,
The Atlantic,
3 June 2026
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Disruption without construction Instructors burned out with the current situation endure a barrage of repetitive bromides.—
ArsTechnica,
ArsTechnica,
13 Apr. 2026
Noun
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In the medieval town of Belvì, men roast chestnuts—marroni—over an open fire in a frying pan the size of a swimming pool and then serve them to the crowd by shoveling them into troughs.—
IEEE Spectrum,
IEEE Spectrum,
7 May 2026
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One programmer joked that his early sketches of the Goombas looked like chestnuts— kuri in Japanese, which is why Goombas are known in Japan as kuribo.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
11 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Clichés.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/clich%C3%A9s. Accessed 17 Jun. 2026.
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