threadbare adj

1 repeated too often; overfamiliar through overuse; "bromidic sermons"; "his remarks were trite and commonplace"; "hackneyed phrases"; "a stock answer"; "repeating threadbare jokes"; "parroting some timeworn axiom"; "the trite metaphor `hard as nails'" [syn: banal, commonplace, hackneyed, old-hat, shopworn, stock(a), timeworn, tired, trite, well-worn]

2 having the nap worn away so that the threads show through; "threadbare rugs"

English

Adjective

threadbare

1. In the context of "of cloth": shabby, frayed and worn to an extent that warp threads show
2. In the context of "of a person": wearing clothes of threadbare material
3. In the context of "of speech": banal or clichéd; trite or hackneyed

back-number, banal, bare, bathetic, bewhiskered, boring, bromidic, cliche, cliche-ridden, cliched, common, commonplace, corny, cut-and-dried, damaged, deep-worn, dilapidated, dingy, dog-eared, down-at-heel, dull, fade, faded, familiar, frayed, fusty, hack, hackney, hackneyed, imitative, impaired, injured, monotonous, moth-eaten, musty, old hat, overused, overworked, platitudinous, played out, prosaic, ragged, run-down, scruffy, seedy, sere, set, shabby, shelfworn, shopworn, slovenly, sorry, square, stale, stereotyped, stock, tacky, tattered, tatty, tedious, timeworn, tired, tiresome, torn, trite, truistic, uncreative, unoriginal, warmed-over, well-known, well-worn, worn, worn out, worn ragged, worn thin, worn to rags, worn to threads, worn-down, worn-out, wretched