COMMONPLACE BOOK • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Commonplace book

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/kˈɑmənplˌeɪs bʊk/ Listen

noun

Commonplace n.

An idea or expression wanting originality or interest; a trite or customary remark; a platitude.

A memorandum; something to be frequently consulted or referred to. "Whatever, in my reading, occurs concerning this our fellow creature, I do never fail to set it down by way of commonplace."

Commonplace book, a book in which records are made of things to be remembered.

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Etymology of 'Commonplace book'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Commonplace book" Quotes from Famous Books

... amusement in country houses was to write imitations or parodies of some well-known poet, and every one took part in this. Nowadays no one would have read the originals, much less be able to imitate them. My mother had a commonplace book into which she had copied the cleverest of these skits, and Landseer illustrated it charmingly in ...

— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... and this patient sufferer, and high minded conqueror, of her own accord took up a commonplace book, and read aloud for two mortal hours to her mother and Aubertin. Her voice only ...

— White Lies • Charles Reade

... A commonplace book with a few written sketches of people in it.] which you entrusted to me: I was very much interested by it. The sketch of Gladstone is excellent. Pray write some more of it some time: I understand him better after ...

— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... was a believer in all poetry which was composed by his friends, and written out in fair straight lines, with a capital at the beginning of each, communicated this treasure to Aunt Rachel, who, with her spectacles dimmed with tears, transferred them to her commonplace book, among choice receipts for cookery and medicine, favourite texts, and portions from High-Church divines, and a few songs, amatory and Jacobitical, which she had carolled in her younger days, from whence her nephew's ...

— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... volume all the principal points with which his reputation is identified; and it is very entertaining, though somewhat unexpected, to find the new one filled with all manner of spicy prolusions—mingled with a few delusions—from his commonplace book. Certainly the learning of these Lectures is unequalled, even by his former exhibitions in that line; and our Cisatlantic standard of attainment seems rather scanty beside ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various