as in cliche
an idea or expression that has been used by many people
the play's dialogue featured all of the groaners that seem to be de rigueur for any dysfunctional-family drama
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Recent Examples of groaner
The only possible groaner, a joke about school shootings, clearly worked with the improv audience but, Wood reasoned, needed to come later in Saturday’s set, once the audience had grown to trust him a bit.
—
Wesley Lowery, Washington Post, 1 May 2023
Evidently the authors — and the director, Jack O’Brien — meant to glue the show together with groaners, a gutsy if not entirely successful move.
—Jesse Green, New York Times, 4 Apr. 2023
The pointillistic eclecticism of @NYT_first_said does tend to highlight the linguistic extremes—the novelties and the gags and the groaners.
—Max Norman, The New Yorker, 7 Mar. 2023
White’s favorite joke is an all-time groaner.
—Jeff McDonald, San Antonio Express-News, 13 Dec. 2021
Sometimes that’s with a good old groaner.
—al, 7 Mar. 2021
There's already been some on-track action, but the first big groaner for the GTP class happens to BMW, when the No. 25 car comes to a halt on the track, sort of half in, half out of the exit.
—Elana Scherr, Car and Driver, 30 Jan. 2023
The premise for this TV One comedy is a groaner: A woman who followed in the footsteps of her mother and had a child at 16 will go to silly lengths to keep her 16-year-old daughter from doing the same.
—Dawn Burkes, Los Angeles Times, 1 Dec. 2021
Scott performs on the track like a bizarro Young Thug, incapable of wringing any enthusiasm out of his voice, and delivers some egregious groaner punchlines, while Drake continues to burrow into narcissism.
—Sheldon Pearce, The New Yorker, 20 Oct. 2021
Wesley Lowery, Washington Post, 1 May 2023
Evidently the authors — and the director, Jack O’Brien — meant to glue the show together with groaners, a gutsy if not entirely successful move.
—Jesse Green, New York Times, 4 Apr. 2023
The pointillistic eclecticism of @NYT_first_said does tend to highlight the linguistic extremes—the novelties and the gags and the groaners.
—Max Norman, The New Yorker, 7 Mar. 2023
White’s favorite joke is an all-time groaner.
—Jeff McDonald, San Antonio Express-News, 13 Dec. 2021
Sometimes that’s with a good old groaner.
—al, 7 Mar. 2021
There's already been some on-track action, but the first big groaner for the GTP class happens to BMW, when the No. 25 car comes to a halt on the track, sort of half in, half out of the exit.
—Elana Scherr, Car and Driver, 30 Jan. 2023
The premise for this TV One comedy is a groaner: A woman who followed in the footsteps of her mother and had a child at 16 will go to silly lengths to keep her 16-year-old daughter from doing the same.
—Dawn Burkes, Los Angeles Times, 1 Dec. 2021
Scott performs on the track like a bizarro Young Thug, incapable of wringing any enthusiasm out of his voice, and delivers some egregious groaner punchlines, while Drake continues to burrow into narcissism.
—Sheldon Pearce, The New Yorker, 20 Oct. 2021
Recent Examples of Synonyms for groaner
Noun
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The song, the first disco hit and an indelible gay anthem, here feels like a pandering cliche.—
Christian Lewis,
Variety,
28 Mar. 2025
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However, and forgive the cliche, but GenAI tools are evolving so fast that what got your organization here won’t get it there.—
Clint Boulton,
Forbes,
25 Mar. 2025
Noun
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That damaging trope—that this new generation is too sensitive, too entitled, too hard to manage—has been lobbed at young people trying to make sense of a job market that looks nothing like the one their parents entered.—
Jasmine Browley,
Essence,
1 Apr. 2025
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The anime auteur responsible for Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo has been rewriting the rules of anime music since the ’90s, subverting tropes, reimagining genres, and weaving together disparate signifiers from the past and future to tell deeply affecting stories that speak to our present.—
Matthew Ismael Ruiz,
Vulture,
1 Apr. 2025
Noun
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The President’s sweeping orders confirm the truism that political shifts test the elasticity and resilience of American democracy.—
Blake D. Morant,
Forbes.com,
3 Apr. 2025
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The truism has it that most great New York magazine editors come from away—from the West or the Midwest or across the Atlantic—and arrive with an ability to see what natives don’t.—
Nathan Heller,
The New Yorker,
15 Mar. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Groaner.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/groaner. Accessed 16 Apr. 2025.
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