Hackneyed

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Hackney \Hack"ney\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Hackneyed} (-n[i^]d);
     p. pr. & vb. n. {Hackneying}.]
     1. To devote to common or frequent use, as a horse or
        carriage; to wear out in common service; to make trite or
        commonplace; as, a hackneyed metaphor or quotation.
        [1913 Webster]


  
              Had I so lavish of my presence been,
              So common-hackneyed in the eyes of men. --Shak.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. To carry in a hackney coach. --Cowper.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  hackneyed
       adj : repeated too often; overfamiliar through overuse; "bromidic
             sermons"; "his remarks were trite and commonplace";
             "hackneyed phrases"; "a stock answer"; "repeating
             threadbare jokes"; "parroting some timeworn axiom";
             "the trite metaphor `hard as nails'" [syn: {banal}, {commonplace},
              {old-hat}, {shopworn}, {stock(a)}, {threadbare}, {timeworn},
              {tired}, {trite}, {well-worn}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  72 Moby Thesaurus words for "hackneyed":
     antediluvian, antiquated, archaic, automatic, back-number, banal,
     bathetic, beaten, bewhiskered, bromidic, cliched, common,
     commonly known, commonplace, constant, conventional, corny,
     current, cut-and-dried, everyday, fade, familiar, frequent, fusty,
     habitual, hack, hackney, household, moth-eaten, musty, notorious,
     obsolete, old hat, out-of-date, outmoded, overworked, persistent,
     platitudinous, proverbial, public, quotidian, recurrent, recurring,
     regular, repetitive, routine, set, square, stale, stereotyped,
     stock, talked-about, talked-of, threadbare, timeworn, tired, trite,
     truistic, universally admitted, universally recognized, unoriginal,
     warmed-over, well-kenned, well-known, well-recognized,
     well-trodden, well-understood, well-worn, widely known, worn,
     worn thin, worn-out