banality

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
13
Words With Friends
15
Letters
8
Pronunciation
/bəˈnælɪti/
See all 2 pronunciations
/bəˈnælɪti/ · /beɪˈnælɪti/

Definition of banality

3 senses · 1 part of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. (uncountable)The quality of being banal.
    “The concept of the banality of evil came into prominence following the publication of Hannah Arendt's 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, which was based on the trial of Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem.”
See all 3 definitions

noun

  1. (uncountable)The quality of being banal.
    “The concept of the banality of evil came into prominence following the publication of Hannah Arendt's 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, which was based on the trial of Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem.”
  2. (countable)Something which is banal.
  3. (countable, historical, rare, uncountable)A feudal right or obligation, especially the obligation for a peasant to grind grain at the lord's mill, or the profits accruing from such rights.
    “The law of banality, one of the most oppressive products of feudalism, was revived for the advantage of the nobility.”
    “Other banalities included the lord's exclusive right to hunt over the land, his monopoly over fishing, and his right to keep the dove-cote whose feathery occupants ate a peasant's standing crops.”
    “In fact corvées, champarts, and rights of banality not only continued but had been increased in the course of the seventeenth century.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

From French banalité, from banal, equivalent to banal + -ity.

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