platitudinize
Verb
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Verb
platitudinize (platitudinizes, present participle platitudinizing; past and past participle platitudinized)
- (intransitive) To utter one or more platitudes; to make obvious, trivial, or clichéd remarks concerning a topic.
- 1894 July 24, "[http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AioRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=RZEDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7240,4369242&dq=platitudinise+%7C+platitudinised+%7C+platitudinising&hl=en An Undenominational Mission: Outspokenness in the Pulpit]," The Age (Australia), p. 5 (retrieved 7 Oct 2011):
- He does not attempt lofty flights of eloquence or try to disguise thought under ponderous platitudinising sentences.
- 1928, R. Austin Freeman, As a Thief in the Night (2001 House of Stratus edition), ISBN 9780755103478, [http://books.google.ca/books?id=-0WzRfVK3x8C&pg=PA139&dq=platitudinize+OR+platitudinized+OR+platitudinizing+subject:%22fiction%22&hl=en&ei=ib6NTsr7NMyJsALpzeS1AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=platitudinize%20OR%20platitudinized%20OR%20platitudinizing%20subject%3A%22fiction%22&f=false p. 139]:
- If we keep our knowledge strictly to ourselves we know exactly how we stand, and that if there has been any leakage, it had been from some other source. But I need not platitudinize to an experienced and learned counsel.
- 2008 Feb. 20, Maxie Zeus, "Glass Fleet ↗," www.tunezone.net (retrieved 7 Oct 2011):
- The people in this show don't talk like normal people—they lecture, they argue, they negotiate, they strategize, they philosophize, they platitudinize, they deliver speeches about destiny, liberty, and bravery.
- 1894 July 24, "[http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AioRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=RZEDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7240,4369242&dq=platitudinise+%7C+platitudinised+%7C+platitudinising&hl=en An Undenominational Mission: Outspokenness in the Pulpit]," The Age (Australia), p. 5 (retrieved 7 Oct 2011):
- (transitive) To express as or reduce to one or more clichés or truisms.
- 1842, Solomon Ludwig Steinheim, "On the Perennial and the Ephemeral in Judaism" in The Jewish Philosophy Reader (2000), edited by Daniel H. Frank et al., ISBN 9780415168601, p. 402 ↗:
- Mendelssohn had misunderstood, platitudinized, and misinterpreted the holy concept of revelation.
- 1962, Philip Roth, Letting Go (1997 Random House edition), ISBN 9780679764175 :
- “It's better to have to struggle when you're young, I think, than when you're older,” she platitudinized.
- 2008 April 25, Simon Jenkins, "The White House race is a catalogue of misspeaking ↗," The Guardian (UK) (retrieved 7 Oct 2011):
- A modern campaign, not just in America, is so fine-tuned, so honed and platitudinised, that mistakes are the only way of bringing it into focus.
- 1842, Solomon Ludwig Steinheim, "On the Perennial and the Ephemeral in Judaism" in The Jewish Philosophy Reader (2000), edited by Daniel H. Frank et al., ISBN 9780415168601, p. 402 ↗:
- (transitive: express as a cliché) trivialize
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003