How to Use cliché in a Sentence

cliché

noun
  • The macho cop of Hollywood movies has become a cliché.
  • The baseball cliche is that chicks dig the long ball.
    — Joe Kozlowski, MSNBC Newsweek, 25 Oct. 2025
  • There’s a warmth to the movie that makes its cliches feel earned, not lazy.
    — Travis Bean, Forbes.com, 12 June 2025
  • This is just the kind of thing that led to the cliche about watching paint dry.
    — Chronicle Staff Report, San Francisco Chronicle, 5 Apr. 2018
  • The old cliche about a blind squirrel seems apropos for this group.
    — Josh Kendall, The Athletic, 25 Mar. 2025
  • Football is, as the cliche goes, a game of inches.
    — Joe Davidson, Sacbee.com, 10 Sep. 2025
  • The cliche about role reversal is true.
    — Eric Koreen, New York Times, 21 June 2026
  • Many of the cliches about this compact, one-club city hold true.
    — George Caulkin, The Athletic, 13 Mar. 2025
  • Consider it not just a sendup, but a send-off to this old cliche.
    — Dallasnews.com Staff, Dallas News, 27 July 2023
  • This, alas, is not the only cliche floating around in the movie.
    — Bill Goodykoontz, AZCentral.com, 24 Oct. 2025
  • This was backs-to-the-wall, win-at-all costs, insert your own cliche here time.
    — Dan Labbe, cleveland, 31 Oct. 2022
  • But the challenge for some chefs is to rise above the cliches they're dealt.
    — Mike Sula, Chicago Reader, 20 Sep. 2017
  • The Western is sort of stoked with a forge full of cliches.
    — Scott Roxborough, HollywoodReporter, 12 Feb. 2026
  • To borrow a cliche, the M’s feel like the team of destiny.
    — The Athletic Mlb Staff, New York Times, 12 Oct. 2025
  • The cliche is that each tech startup needs at least a hacker and a hustler.
    — Abdo Riani, Forbes, 11 May 2021
  • The quarterback is the face of the franchise and that’s not a cliche.
    — cleveland.com, 30 Jan. 2018
  • And yet, as the cliche goes, cliches are cliches for a reason.
    — Rachel Rosenblit, Washington Post, 14 Dec. 2020
  • March is around the corner, and the old cliche usually holds.
    — Nick Baumgardner, Detroit Free Press, 16 Feb. 2018
  • At the same time, the film itself avoids many horror movie cliches.
    — Lincoln Michel, GQ, 7 Oct. 2017
  • As the film ends, the reason for its title becomes the worst cliche of all.
    — Marya E. Gates, IndieWire, 13 May 2026
  • What sports or politics cliche resonates the most with you?
    — Dominick Mastrangelo, The Hill, 22 Dec. 2025
  • What sports or politics cliche resonates the most with you?
    — Dominick Mastrangelo, The Hill, 15 Dec. 2025
  • What sports or politics cliche resonates the most with you?
    — Dominick Mastrangelo, The Hill, 16 Feb. 2026
  • And also, wondering about the cliche, is the town big enough for both of them?
    — Matt Donnelly, Variety, 19 Sep. 2022
  • Watching the series was, as the cliche goes, hanging out with some friends.
    — Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 16 Sep. 2019
  • Of course, some cliches are nothing but lazy thinking.
    — Stephanie Bunbury, Deadline, 30 Aug. 2025
  • People want stories — that’s a cliche for a reason.
    — Julian Sancton, HollywoodReporter, 22 Dec. 2025
  • Which means Japan might be, as the cliche goes, a victim of its own success.
    — Adam Rogers, Wired, 22 July 2021
  • The box was like this cliche of what prom is supposed to look like in the catalogues and movies.
    — Janay Kingsberry, Washington Post, 21 May 2022
  • So at least in her case, the Wild West cliches hold pretty true.
    — Erik Pedersen, Oc Register, 30 May 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cliché.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: