Both Uses of
banal
in
The Scarlet Pimpernel
- She watched his anxiety melting away under her sunny smile, and soon perceived that, whatever doubt may have crossed his mind at the moment, she had, by the time the last bars of the minuet had been played, succeeded in completely dispelling it; he never realised in what a fever of excitement she was, what effort it cost her to keep up a constant ripple of BANAL conversation.†
Chpt 13banal = uninteresting due to a lack of anything original or unusual
- The situation was indeed grotesque, had it not been at the same time so fearfully tragic: the poor, weary woman, broken in spirit, and half frantic with the bitterness of her disappointment, receiving on her knees the BANAL gallantries of her deadly enemy.†
Chpt 28 *
Definition:
uninteresting due to a lack of anything original or unusual
Pronunciation: Banal is correctly pronounced differently by various educated speakers of American English.