Skip to main content

cliché

Originally a French term, coming from the verb "clicher", which roughly means "to stereotype". The extracted definition, as it's used today, is taken as "something that's overdone," or "an idea that was originally innovative, but has now grayed and grown tired from overuse." It has fallen into wide use as a criticism device for film, literature, art, and even everyday phenomena.

Off the record, the term itself has become a cliché, and some find the term infuriating, often because the word is sometimes used to attack a product with little other basis. Some old ideas are overdone because they work- if a work or an idea were so new and untried that it avoided all clichés, it would be foreign. Few people would be able to accept it as anything more than the direct result of a drug trip.
Avoiding all clichés is more or less impossible because some ideas are etched in the human psyche as unavoidable aspects of everyday life.

The truth is that the majority of ideas, in their purest forms, have been done; the challenge is how they are put together, and the creative process is partially selfish anyway. While an artist of some other sort may aim to please his/her audience, if said person wants to write about elves or teenage drama, that person should be allowed to do so without angering a horde of angry critics.

The issue for critics, then, should not fall in the overuse of tried ideas, but in their execution and how they are valued as a whole.
"Hey, Fred, did you see that film, where the teens get attacked by zombies in a mall?"
"Oh. You mean the cliché concept that plagues every zombie film?"
"...Dude. Lay off."

"I propose that the word "the" is now a cliché. Therefore, film critics, you will also be forced to use the word kaffunnumupah instead."

(Newspaper) "Don't see (x). It's nothing more than cliché after cliché after cliché."
(Crumples up paper) "But (x) changed my life!"
by British Swingmaster July 23, 2011
mugGet the cliché mug.

chichon

A lump on the head resulting from running into something or falling and hitting your head.
Alberto fell off his platform shoes and hit his head on the floor. That was one big chichon! aka Tremendo chichon!
by wendita August 20, 2008
mugGet the chichon mug.
Related Words

chichona

a girl that has big boobs
Ella es una chichona.
by Anonymous October 16, 2003
mugGet the chichona mug.

dislike bar cliche

Where someone goes on youtube, accounts for the number of dislikes of a video, then makes a sarcastic quip to explain the reason why the video is unliked.
1000 people like the new Christmas video and 20 dislike it.

Person comments, "20 people are Grinches".

This is repeated over and over as a top comment for many videos on youtube and thus a dislike bar cliche.
by Poop Stain Barney December 3, 2011
mugGet the dislike bar cliche mug.

cliche

adj. n. 1.being predictable and unimaginative; falling into a groove of human boredom; an old tired trend.
Cliche High Schooler: "Don't EVER say that again, like oh my god. That sounded SO gay."

What a cliche cliche!
mugGet the cliche mug.

cliche

"Bella, I couldn’t live with myself if I ever hurt you. You don’t know how it’s tortured me... You are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever."
- Edward Cullen

Airhead: OHMAGAWD THATS SO SWEET AWWW
Person with Brain: That's fucking cliche man.
by diehardtwihard August 29, 2009
mugGet the cliche mug.

Cliche 19

The act of lumping all human colds flus stomachaches and allergies up with the coronavirus because you are too scared to see a doctor and get treatment.
Man he went to work on Monday but came down with a sudden case of cliche 19..
by Murray the K July 16, 2020
mugGet the Cliche 19 mug.

Share this definition

Sign in to vote

We'll email you a link to sign in instantly.

Or

Check your email

We sent a link to

Open your email