Skip to content
GREMockTests
GRE vocabulary

banal

adjectiveHigh-frequency wordMore B words

lacking originality and so dull or commonplace

Word origin: From French banal, common to all, from ban a feudal proclamation.

Start a free GRE mock test 39 minutes · free · instant score
In a sentence

Banal in a sentence

Here are example sentences showing banal in a sentence.

His speech was a string of banal platitudes that no one remembered.

The keynote offered only banal advice that every attendee had heard a dozen times before.

Antonyms
originalfreshnovel

Quick GRE check

Question 1 of 3

3 questions, about 2 minutes. How would you do on the real test?

Verbal · Text Completion

The historian argued that the empire's collapse was not blank but the predictable outcome of decades of fiscal mismanagement that contemporaries had simply refused to acknowledge.

Select the word that best completes the sentence.

Usage & nuance

Using “banal” well

Banal describes something so commonplace that it has lost all freshness or interest. It is more dismissive than merely ordinary, implying tiresome predictability.

Common questions

Questions about “banal”

Banal (adjective) means lacking originality and so dull or commonplace
Here is banal used in an example sentence: "His speech was a string of banal platitudes that no one remembered." Another example: "The keynote offered only banal advice that every attendee had heard a dozen times before."
Common synonyms for banal include trite, hackneyed, insipid, vapid.
Antonyms of banal include original, fresh, novel.
Banal clusters with trite, hackneyed, insipid, and vapid in Sentence Equivalence. Its antonyms original, fresh, and novel mark the inventive opposite a passage may contrast against it.
Yes. Banal is a high-frequency GRE word, so it is worth prioritising as you build your vocabulary.

See these words the way the GRE tests them.

Take the free 39-minute GRE Quick Mock Test and meet words like this inside real Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence questions, with a worked solution for every answer.