cliché
(‖ kliʃe, ˈkliːʃeɪ)
[Fr., pa. pple. of clicher, var. of cliquer to click, applied by die-sinkers to the striking of melted lead in order to obtain a proof or cast: see Littré.]
1. The French name for a stereotype block; a cast or ‘dab’; applied esp. to a metal stereotype of a wood-engraving used to print from.
Originally, a cast obtained by letting a matrix fall face downward upon a surface of molten metal on the point of cooling, called in English type-foundries ‘dabbing’.
| 1832 Babbage Econ. Manuf. xi. (ed. 3) 95 A process for copying, called in France clichée. 1850 Art. Jrnl. 219 Cliché is also applied to the French stereotype casts from woodcuts. 1868 C. Darwin in Life (1887) III. 87 Engelmann has..offered me clichés of the woodcuts. |
2. Extended to the negative in photography. (
Mod. Dicts.)
3. a. fig. A stereotyped expression, a commonplace phrase; also, a stereotyped character, style, etc. Also
collect.| 1892 A. Lang in Longman's Mag. Dec. 217 They have the hatred of clichés and commonplace, of the outworn phrase, of clashing consonants. 1895 Westm. Gaz. 19 Apr. 3/2 The farcical American woman who ‘wakes everybody up’ with her bounding vulgarities..is rapidly becoming a cliché, both on the stage and in fiction. 1902 Gosse in Encycl. Brit. XXVIII. 261/1 All but the obvious motives tend to express themselves no longer as thoughts but as clichés. 1909 O. Jennings Morphia Habit vi. 72 The above description of morphinism has been repeated by one compiler after another, until it has become a cliché. 1909 H. G. Wells Ann Veronica xiv. 295 Nothing but cliché seems to meet this case. 1913 E. F. Benson Thorley Weir iv. 151 Probably Charles never painted more magically than in those ten minutes, even when the magic of his brush had become a phrase in art criticism, a cliché. 1923 J. M. Murry Pencillings 151 Carlyle picked out as specimen clichés of the orator, ‘The rights of suffering millions’, and ‘the divine gift of song’, which are still hard-worked to-day. 1948 ‘E. Crispin’ Buried for Pleasure vi. 43 The command of cliché comes of having had a literary training. 1963 Listener 28 Feb. 376/2 It [sc. the magazine story] is composed of prefabricated clichés—stock characters, stock situations, stock dialogue, stock plots. |
b. attrib. and
Comb., as
cliché-monger,
cliché-personality;
cliché-ridden adj.| 1947 ‘N. Blake’ Minute for Murder ii. 31 I'll do in the little cliché-monger. 1962 Listener 8 Nov. 780/1 Often it sufficed to let some pompous cliché-monger speak for himself. |
| 1925 Wyndham Lewis Let. 1 Apr. (1963) 156 The book..divided in 3 parts, named respectively the Cliché-Personality, the Patria Potestas and Primitive Communism. |
| 1928 Manch. Guardian Weekly 23 Nov. 413/4 The middle section.., though it begins with a cliché-ridden trifle, has poems of..imaginative power. |
c. Used as
adj. Stereotyped, hackneyed.
| 1959 Listener 30 July 188/1 The kind of fond reminiscence which comes rather too near the cliché view of human situations. 1962 Ibid. 9 Aug. 196/2 Many of the productions of our ‘new wave’ in the theatre have been narrow in outlook, cliché in sentiment, shaky in stagecraft. |
Hence
clichéd,
cliché'd a., hackneyed; characterized by clichés.
| 1928 A. Waugh Last Chukka 83 There is no adjective but the cliché'd deafening that can fittingly describe the tornado of noise that had welcomed the recitation. 1943 Horizon VIII. 388 The clichéd thought, the seemingly happy ending. 1961 New Left Rev. Jan.–Feb. 42/2 Television will continue to be clichéd, formula-ridden and bland. 1968 Daily Tel. (Colour Suppl.) 22 Nov. 55/2 Young architects have for some time struggled to vary the clichéd house plans turned out by some builders. |