Bromide
A trite, dull statement that sounds soothing but carries no real thought.
A bromide is a flat, familiar remark offered as if it were wisdom: 'Everything happens for a reason,' 'It is what it is,' 'Time heals all wounds.' The word comes from the sedative potassium bromide, which was once prescribed for headaches and nerves; by the nineteenth century the chemical calmness of the drug had become a metaphor for the verbal calmness of clichés.
Bromides differ from proverbs because proverbs preserve genuine folk insight, while bromides have been worn so smooth by repetition that they no longer point to any particular truth. They are not false, exactly; they are too vague to be tested.
Writers use bromides deliberately to mark a character as complacent or evasive — a politician, a parent, a colleague who reaches for the soothing phrase instead of the difficult answer. In nonfiction, a page of bromides reads as evasion.
Common mistake: trying to revive a bromide with italics or a dramatic pause. A bromide is not a thought in need of emphasis; it is a thought that has been replaced by a gesture.
“Everything happens for a reason.”
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A phrase or quote so overused that it has lost most of its force.
A statement so obviously true that it is almost not worth saying.
A short, catchy phrase designed to be remembered and repeated in the service of a cause, brand, or campaign.
The diminishing return when a famous quote has been repeated past the point of feeling.