commonplace book
1
7.9
- noun
- /ˈkɑːmənˌpleɪs bʊk/
:
cuaderno de notas
- I use my commonplace book to jot down inspiring quotes and ideas I come across in my readings.
Examples
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Crane also investigates notions of gathering and framing material for commonplace books, as well as their pedagogical value to English education in the sixteenth century.
Academic text (1993) -
A commonplace book contains many notions in garrison, whence the owner may draw out an army into the field.
Blog text (26) -
I thought it had life in it, so I reprint it here in my commonplace book.
Blog text (6) -
But for the most part, a commonplace book was a private storehouse of those points of understanding that helped a thinking person move through their life.
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1837-9 HALLAM: They registered all his table talk in commonplace books.
Blog text (6) -
Auden published a nifty commonplace book.
Blog text (4) -
A studious young man may gather to himself good furniture both of words and approved phrases and to make to his use, as it were, a commonplace book.
Blog text (26) -
1794 Gibbon: I filled a folio commonplace book with my collections and remarks on the geography of Italy.
Blog text (6) -
In my own courses, I have students do such exercises in their "commonplace books" (i.e., notebooks in which they write about the connections between the course material and their lives outside the classroom).
Academic text (2016) -
Crane examines the role of the commonplace book in sixteenth-century English culture, while attempting to locate its context in the intellectual, social, and ideological literatures of the time.
Academic text (1993)
Synonyms
187
1.0
A book of blank or lined pages for writing notes
How Organized
30
3.9
35
5.6
272
2.6
1
7.9
187
1.0
1
4.2
Surface Forms
Morphology
A B1 learner who knows 'commonplace' as 'ordinary' and 'book' as 'book' would likely interpret this as an 'ordinary book' or be confused; the actual meaning (a personal notebook for collecting quotations) depends on an archaic/specialized noun sense of 'commonplace' as a collection of notable sayings. That historical sense is unlikely known to B1 learners, so the meaning is not derivable from the constituents.
Etymology
Commonplace book comes from the old idea of a commonplace as 'a place for useful ideas', so people would keep a small book to collect quotes, notes, and helpful thoughts in one place. That's why today a commonplace book means 'a notebook used to collect and remember useful quotations, ideas, or information'.