The practice or tendency of using hackneyed expressions; the characteristic of being trite or unoriginal in expression.
From 'hackney' + '-ism' (a practice or system). This term emerged in literary criticism to describe a stylistic flaw where writers relied too heavily on clichés.
Literary critics used this term to diagnose a real problem in writing—'hackneyism' as a disease of the mind where a writer just can't help themselves from using the thousandth time-worn metaphor.
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