Search Result for "threadbare": 
Wordnet 3.0

ADJECTIVE (2)

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

2. having the nap worn away so that the threads show through;
- Example: "threadbare rugs"


The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Threadbare \Thread"bare`\, a. 1. Worn to the naked thread; having the nap worn off; threadbare clothes. "A threadbare cope." --Chaucer. [1913 Webster] 2. Fig.: Worn out; as, a threadbare subject; stale topics and threadbare quotations. --Swift. [1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

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), threadbare, timeworn, tired, trite, well-worn] 2: having the nap worn away so that the threads show through; "threadbare rugs"
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

80 Moby Thesaurus words for "threadbare": 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