poncif means an unoriginal or uninspired idea; a cliché. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 100 out of 100.
Why “poncif” is a great word
PONCIF — [Noun] An unoriginal, stereotyped, or hackneyed idea, expression, or artistic motif. Borrowed from French poncif ("cliché, stereotype"), from poncif ("stencil"), from poncer ("to copy with pouncing paper") + -if, from ponce ("pumice") + -er, from Late Latin pōmex ("pumice"), from Latin pūmex ("pumice"), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)poH(y)- ("foam"). First attested in English in 1903. Unlike "cliché," which broadly names any overused phrase, or "truism," which states an obvious fact, a poncif is a laboriously copied convention, the telltale grit of a borrowed idea. It is the perfectly placed tear on a porcelain cheek in an academic portrait, the conveniently echoing footstep in a Gothic corridor, and the hero’s precisely windswept hair in a cinematic climax—the ghost of a once-vital form, painstakingly transferred until all that remains is the dust of the tracing.
Etymology
Borrowed from French poncif (“cliché, stereotype”), from French poncif (“stencil”), from poncer (“to copy with pouncing paper”) + -if, from ponce (“pumice”) + -er, from Late Latin pōmex (“pumice”), from Latin pūmex (“pumice”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)poH(y)- (“foam”).
noun
- An unoriginal or uninspired idea; a cliché.“This hope is based on an optimistic view that human beings are capable of understanding their culture, naïvely, if their minds have not been corrupted by the poncifs of fashion, the superficiality of the juste-milieu, or the kind of art which falsifies the conditions of life.”