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Acumen is the ability to make quick decisions and keen, precise judgments.
When you claim that something is banal, you do not like it because you think it is ordinary, dull, commonplace, and boring.
A chimerical idea is unrealistic, imaginary, or unlikely to be fulfilled.
A curio is an object that is very old or unusual; thus, it is viewed as interesting.
Distinctive qualities set people or things apart from everyone or everything else—they are what make people or things different or unique.
Weather that is dreary tends to be depressing and gloomy; a situation or person that is dreary tends to be boring or uninteresting.
If you describe a person, group, or civilization as effete, you mean it is weak, exhausted, powerless, unproductive, and/or corrupt.
Ennui is the feeling of being bored, tired, and dissatisfied with life.
Someone who is erudite is steeped in knowledge because they have read and studied extensively.
If you think something, such as a statement or idea, is fatuous, you consider it stupid or extremely silly; a fatuous hope is unrealistic.
Hackneyed words, images, ideas, or sayings have been used so often that they no longer seem interesting or amusing.
Something humdrum is dull, boring, or tiresome.
Someone who has had an illustrious professional career is celebrated and outstanding in their given field of expertise.
If you describe someone’s behavior as inane, you think it is completely stupid or without much meaning.
Something insipid is dull, boring, and has no interesting features; for example, insipid food has no taste or little flavor.
If you describe ideas as jejune, you are saying they are childish and uninteresting; the adjective jejune also describes those having little experience, maturity, or knowledge.
Something mediocre is average or ordinary in quality; it’s just OK.
A monotonous activity is so repetitious that it quickly becomes boring and dull.
Something that is mundane is very ordinary and not interesting or exciting, especially because it happens very often.
Something that is notional exists only as an idea or in theory—not in reality.
An ornate object is heavily or excessively decorated with complicated shapes and patterns.
A pantheon is also the collective gods of a given people.
When someone exhibits profundity, they display great intellectual depth and understanding; profundity can also be the depth or complexity of something.
Something prosaic is dull, boring, and ordinary.
Something that is quotidian is done on a daily basis.
People or things that are resplendent are beautiful, bright, and impressive in appearance.
A sagacious person is wise, intelligent, and has the ability to make good practical decisions.
A scintillating conversation, speech, or performance is brilliantly clever, interesting, and lively.
A stupendous event or accomplishment is amazing, wonderful, or spectacular.
A superlative deed or act is excellent, outstanding, or the best of its kind.
If you are suffering from tedium, you are bored.
A trite remark or idea is so overused that it is no longer interesting or novel.
Something that is unadorned is not made more attractive with ornament or decoration.
Something uncanny is very strange, unnatural, or highly unusual.
Something vapid is dull, boring, and/or tiresome.
Something vintage is the best of its kind and of excellent quality; it is of a past time and is considered a classic example of its type.
Adj.
pedestrian
puh-DES-tree-uhn
Context
My brother has decided to become a banker, which seems to me like a boring, unimaginative, and pedestrian career. He has always been artistic, so I imagined his becoming a painter or a sculptor rather than working a pedestrian, nine-to-five, everyday job. I think he wanted the financial security that is more easily attained through pedestrian, commonplace, run-of-the-mill work.
Quiz:Try again!
When is something considered pedestrian?
PedestrianPedestrian Immanuel Kant, the great German philosopher, was such a pedestrianpedestrian because he would take the same walk at the same time each and every day, each and every day of his life.
Examples
In one of his very few artistic pronouncements he claimed that the writer's duty is "to meet as many pedestrian people as possible and to listen to the most pedestrian conversation." He raised the pedestrian to the sublime.
—
The Atlantic
The book, winner of a European Union Prize for Literature in 2015, is most affecting when Mitchell must consider how much human compassion should interfere with inflexible rules and pedestrian logistics.
—
The Christian Science Monitor
Anyone who has tried to write an artful sentence knows that it involves fastening the known to the unknown by some mysterious process that takes place “at the roots of thinking,” where the brain wrests an idea from an inchoate mass of sensory data and encodes it in parts of speech that another mind can decrypt. Pedestrian language bears few traces of the staggering richness and particularity that are lost in the transaction.
—
The New Yorker
The adjective pedestrian refers to the place where everyone is “on foot,” that is, the common place where people or pedestrians usually walk; hence, the heavily-used path would be the pedestrian, or ordinary, one.
Word Constellation
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Related Words
banal ·
dreary ·
effete ·
ennui ·
fatuous ·
hackneyed ·
humdrum+ ·
inane ·
insipid ·
jejune ·
mediocre ·
monotonous+ ·
mundane ·
prosaic ·
quotidian ·
tedium ·
trite ·
unadorned ·
vapid ·
acumen ·
chimerical ·
curio ·
distinctive+ ·
erudite ·
illustrious+ ·
notional ·
ornate ·
pantheon ·
profundity ·
resplendent ·
sagacious ·
scintillating ·
stupendous+ ·
superlative+ ·
uncanny+ ·
vintage+ ·
Similar sense
Opposite sense
Word Variants
pedestrian
n
→
someone who walks rather than rides
The section lists important variants and alternate definitions of the headword. Knowing variants will often help you both remember and understand the word. Not all variants are listed - only the ones we think that are important for you to know.
