Word of the day: Hackneyed

Hackneyed
- adj.

Pronunciation:
[HAK-need]

Definition:
made commonplace or trite; stale; banal: the hackneyed images of his poetry.

Etymology:
1769, "kept for hire," pp. adj. from hackney. The figurative sense of "trite, so overused as to have become uninteresting" is older, 1749, from hack (n.2) in special sense of "one who writes anything for hire."

"No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity; the clichés that make you laugh, the hackneyed characters, the well-worn situations, the commonplace story that excites your derision, seem neither hackneyed, well worn nor commonplace to him.... The conclusion is obvious: you cannot write anything that will convince unless you are yourself convinced. The best seller sells because he writes with his heart's blood."
-W. Somerset Maugham