What's the difference between cliche and trite?

Cliche


Definition:

  • (n.) A stereotype plate or any similar reproduction of ornament, or lettering, in relief.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It is a cliche to suggest that success requires long-term planning, but in the case of investing in the support structures that can extend the domain of early intervention, this is most certainly true.
  • (2) High stakes is a terrible cliche, but this is about as high stakes as diplomacy gets.
  • (3) Yet life in reality looks less rosy than these cliches suggest.
  • (4) Lawrence is said to bristle at the now-cliched description of her as "dignified".
  • (5) Looking at the current proposals, and mounting concerns about them, I'm rather reminded of cliched advice always thrown at parents with worries about a child: if you suspect something isn't right, then it is no good assuming that everything will somehow turn out OK – you must act, and fast.
  • (6) Hannah Jane Parkinson, community Dancing with the drag queens of NYC Downlow It's become a bit of cliche to say this, but Thursday really is the best day of the festival: there wasn't any mud at that stage this year; the site's not yet at maximum occupancy; and of course there's no live music – so no pressure to flog yourself to a distant stage to see a band you once half-promised yourself you ought to see.
  • (7) I'd known I was a girl since I was four, if you'll excuse the cliche, but everyone told me I couldn't be, because of a pesky penis between my legs.
  • (8) It incants the motto of the Bill Shankly school of cliche: that football is not a matter of life and death, it is far more important.
  • (9) "The models slowly evolved from girl-next-door types towards the visual cliches of the soft porn industry," they write.
  • (10) Hammond and May’s new acronym is intended to signal a break from the previous government, but is also an acknowledgement that political cliches can quickly become tired and counterproductive.
  • (11) Paradoxically, she no longer needed to prove that she was tough enough for the job; it was becoming a cliche ... to say that she was 'the best man among them'.
  • (12) Take that cosy, cliched history of black Britain that begins with the Pathe newsreel of Empire Windrush docking at Tilbury.
  • (13) The wrecked "candy ravers" and rampaging fratboys of EDM cliche are barely present – aside from more visible breasts and muscles, it is close to any European festival audience out for a good time, perhaps even a bit savvier.
  • (14) As she matured she also developed into an astute and sensitive dance actor; her portrayal of characters such as Manon or Natalia Petrovna in A Month in the Country were refreshingly free of ballet cliche.
  • (15) World Cup fashion, Brazil-cliche-style: hot pants, thigh-high boots and sequinned bikini tops.
  • (16) Ruth Rendell: In quotes Read more The cliched view of Rendell is that she suddenly changed her style when, in the 1980s, she started writing as Barbara Vine, but the truth is that from the beginning, even in the Wexford tales, she concentrated more on character and psychology than old-fashioned police procedure.
  • (17) A kind of ironic pessimism – planning to fail – is a bit of a cliche in contemporary art.
  • (18) For me it’s much more important than just playing music in clubs and dancing – all these cliches – it’s much more than that.
  • (19) When Perry was four, she ran off with the milkman (this is why, he tells me, he has always hated cliches) and married him.
  • (20) Its sounds like a cliche – and a socially costly cliche at that – but the change most likely to end abuse is one that raises the pay and conditions status of those who care for the elderly to the same as that of nursery and primary school teachers.

Trite


Definition:

  • (a.) Worn out; common; used until so common as to have lost novelty and interest; hackneyed; stale; as, a trite remark; a trite subject.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Berg sat with Leija on Thursday evening, learning to sing Chris Medina's What Are Words, which includes lyrics that could be considered unbearably trite were they not now so fitting: "And I know an angel was sent just for me, And I know I'm meant to be where I am, And I'm gonna be, Standing right beside her tonight."
  • (2) "That might sound trite, but it does feel that way.
  • (3) Giles Oakley London • In conception and format, it was trite – while being undeservedly pompous and self-esteeming.
  • (4) It sounds trite now, but I was born in '58, so when I was seven or eight the city [of Liverpool] was awash with music.
  • (5) Inside that trite sentence, “We need to figure out how to make this work for everyone,” hides the skeleton of a monster.
  • (6) The three-day Baltimore retreat exposed discord within the ranks, but largely the same leadership espoused trite slogans that long predated Trump.
  • (7) Although it might seem trite to point out that tissue sampling is a potential source of experimental error, this survey disclosed that even experienced investigators in fact often work with cartilage that is contaminated by non-cartilaginous tissue of which they were unaware.
  • (8) I should, by rights, have produced a 300-word listicle containing trite, observational humour about self-service checkouts, but disappointingly, Buzzfeed got there first .
  • (9) A case in point is The Black Eyed Peas song Where Is The Love?, which when heard on the radio can seem a bit trite in its appeal for pan-global understanding, but in this context chimed perfectly with the need for clear, emphatic statements following trauma.
  • (10) The guest list pass from the 3rdeyegirl gig is still stuck fast to the inside of my jacket To say Prince was a rare figure, even in the glorified secure unit that is pop, is a little trite.
  • (11) Over the past few years of recession and regression, it has become a trite truism of European politics that you can't go wrong going to the right.
  • (12) These relations are in reality, not just as a trite phrase, a potential "win-win situation".
  • (13) I also wanted to slightly complicate rather than clarify the Nick situation because it’s so easy to come up with trite answers – that he came from a stuffy, upper-middle-class background, nobody understood him.
  • (14) To say it is a victory for hope may sound trite and cliched, but it is really the only explanation for what has occurred.
  • (15) In the case of Podemos, repeatedly attacking la casta (the elites) may seem simple or trite on paper, as some have argued, but expressing your disavowal in the context of Spain’s domination by a corrupt, unreformable “regime of 78” (the year of the post-Franco constitution) which is in thrall to the troika and their friends in the bailed-out banks, as well as 40 years of Francoist patriarchy before that, becomes potentially transcendent.
  • (16) "It is just not good enough to give a trite phrase saying we will learn lessons if you don't learn the lessons and if you don't make sure on a regular basis that the lessons have filtered down to your officers.
  • (17) He told the BBC: "I wasn't having a go at multiculturalism itself, I was having a go at the rather trite way, frankly, it was represented in the opening ceremony.
  • (18) For whose benefit are those early Sunday morning photos of piles of finished marking accompanied by a trite, self-congratulatory message?
  • (19) I have read it three times to satisfy myself that there is nothing trivial, trite or ridiculous about it.
  • (20) Inside that trite sentence, 'We need to figure out how to make this work for everyone,' hides the skeleton of a monster I disagree that the old way is better.