platitude
Sign in to saveA platitude is a statement that is seen as trite, meaningless, or prosaic, aimed at quelling social, emotional, or cognitive unease. The statement may be true, but its meaning has been lost due to its excessive use as a thought-terminating cliché.
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
6 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- Examples
- In philosophy
- See also
- References
- Bibliography
A platitude is a statement that is seen as trite, meaningless, or prosaic, aimed at quelling social, emotional, or cognitive unease. The statement may be true, but its meaning has been lost due to its excessive use as a thought-terminating cliché.
Platitudes have been criticized as giving a false impression of wisdom, making it easy to accept falsehoods:
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “platitude” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.