unoriginal

adjective. silly, commonplace

adjective. sterile

adjective. sterile

Word Origin & History

1660s, "having no origin, uncreated," from un- (1) "not" + original (adj.). Meaning "derivative, second-hand" is recorded from 1774.

It is as easy to be unoriginal as it is hard at times to be original.

The advertising writer is the most unoriginal creature imaginable.

Yet one would be loath to approve his arguments, unoriginal as they are.

And so on—respectable answers, unoriginal but having the sanction of history, of just and generous minds.

But the style of most of them is unoriginal, being merely an echo of that of the English Lake School.

He would return a purse, I am sure, upon discovering that he had obtained it by an unoriginal diddle.

For they are as hollow as a drum and as unoriginal as a bride-cake: nothing but vacuity with an icing of phrases.

Poets and philosophers and statesmen thus spring up in the country pastures, and outlast the hosts of unoriginal men.

The version, though offering many interesting features, is too late and unoriginal to be of use in the present investigation.

There also Leonardo came into contact with that unoriginal painter Lorenzo di Credi, his junior by seven years.