An idea or expression wanting originality or interest; a trite or customary remark; a platitude.
2.
A memorandum; something to be frequently consulted or referred to. "Whatever, in my reading, occurs concerning this our fellow creature, I do never fail to set it down by way of commonplace."
Commonplace book, a book in which records are made of things to be remembered.
... with which his verse is surcharged. He did not extract from the poets and the great writers whom he was daily turning over, but only from the inferior authors and secondary historians, which he read only once. Most of the material collected in the commonplace book is used in his prose pamphlets. But when so employed the facts are worked into the texture of his argument, rather ... — Milton • Mark Pattison
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