platitude \PLAT-uh-tood; -tyood\, noun:
1. Staleness of ideas or language; triteness.
2. A thought or remark that is banal, trite, or stale.

Yet a curious thing happens in this book: Whatever promise it offers of satire and enlightened vision dissipates into cliche and platitude.
-- Edward Rothstein, "Against Galactic Rhetoric", New York Times, April 3, 1983

The average sports memoir is a prodigy of simpering modesty and high-minded platitude: enough to rot the mind and sap the morals of the sturdiest child.
-- Wilfrid Sheed, "Take Me Back to the Ballgame", New York Times, September 18, 1966

She'll have to cut the platitudes and start saying something unusual and provocative, which she hasn't yet.
-- Jonathan Alter, "Why It's Time to Let Loose", Newsweek, December 6, 1999

Platitude derives from French plat, "flat." It is related to plate, a flat piece of metal or a flat dish in which food is served or from which it is eaten; and plateau, a broad, level, elevated area of land. The adjective form of platitude is platitudinous.

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tintinnabulation \tin-tih-nab-yuh-LAY-shuhn\, noun:
A tinkling sound, as of a bell or bells.

One found oneself immersed in the infinitely nuanced tintinnabulations of clapping cymbal rhythms passed from one player to the next, in the barely audible, rain-like patter of drums that suddenly grew into an overwhelming mechanical onslaught.
-- Tim Page, "From Japan, The Thundering Drums of Kodo", Newsday, February 24, 1995


Tintinnabulation derives from Latin tintinnabulum "a bell," from tintinnare from tinnire, "to jingle."