hackneyed

adjective

1. made commonplace or trite; stale; banal: the hackneyed images of his poetry.

noun, plural hack·neys.

1. Also called hackney coach. a carriage or coach for hire; cab.
2. a trotting horse used for drawing a light carriage or the like.
3. a horse used for ordinary riding or driving.
4. (initial capital letter) one of an English breed of horses having a high-stepping gait.

adjective

5. let out, employed, or done for hire.

verb (used with object)

6. to make trite, common, or stale by frequent use.
7. to use as a hackney.

adjective

1. (of phrases, fashions, etc) used so often as to be trite, dull, and stereotyped

noun

1. a compact breed of harness horse with a high-stepping trot
2. 1. a coach or carriage that is for hire
   2. (as modifier)a hackney carriage
3. a popular term for hack 2 (def. 1)

verb

4. (tr; usually passive) to make commonplace and banal by too frequent use

noun

1. a borough of NE Greater London: formed in 1965 from the former boroughs of Shoreditch, Stoke Newington, and Hackney; nearby are Hackney Marshes, the largest recreation ground in London. Pop: 208 400 (2003 est). Area: 19 sq km (8 sq miles)

adj.

1769, “kept for hire,” past participle adjective from hackney. The figurative sense of “trite, so overused as to have become uninteresting” is older, 1749, from hack (n.2) in special sense of “one who writes anything for hire.”

late 12c., from Old English Hacan ieg “Haca’s Isle” (or possibly “Hook Island”), the “isle” element here meaning dry land in a marsh. Now well within London, it once was pastoral and horses apparently were kept there. Hence hackney “small saddle horse let out for hire” (c.1300), with subsequent deterioration of sense (see hack (n.2)). And cf. French haquenée “ambling nag,” an English loan-word.