Skip to content

banalité

banality

noun bah-nah-lee-TEH Rare
Communication Speech

Also means

cliché

Usage Note

Banalité describes either the quality of being commonplace and unoriginal, or a specific banal remark. The plural banalités is often used to mean 'small talk' or 'platitudes' — échanger des banalités. The root adjective banal has an unusual masculine plural banals rather than banaux.

Examples

"Il n'a dit que des banalités toute la soirée."

Natural Translation

He said nothing but banalities all evening.

Explore French by topic