Platitudinous
adj ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Characterised by clichés or platitudes.
"If [Lord George] Bentinck had been reared for office, if, as Wilberforce recommends, he had been harnessed early to official duty, and if he had been sent into Parliament a platitudinous thing, made up of statistics, red tape and priggishness, like Mr. [Benjamin] Disraeli's Tadpole and Taper, we could well understand his strong mind breaking the thralls of official conventionality, and forcing him to become the man he was, armed at all points, ever ready for attack or defence; […]"
- 1 dull and tiresome but with pretensions of significance or originality wordnet
Example
More examples"If [Lord George] Bentinck had been reared for office, if, as Wilberforce recommends, he had been harnessed early to official duty, and if he had been sent into Parliament a platitudinous thing, made up of statistics, red tape and priggishness, like Mr. [Benjamin] Disraeli's Tadpole and Taper, we could well understand his strong mind breaking the thralls of official conventionality, and forcing him to become the man he was, armed at all points, ever ready for attack or defence; […]"
Etymology
From platitude + -in- + -ous.
More for "platitudinous"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.