Originally a printer’s term, cliché comes from the onomatopoeic French “clicher” — a phonetic description of mold striking metal plates in the 1880s, used endlessly without variety to reproduce prints or designs.

Today, cliché is overwhelmingly used to describe overused phrases, themes, and expressions, sometimes making the use of the word feel like a cliché in itself, a semantic sensation — for example, this post.