poncif

AI In plain words

Writing a short explanation…

Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

poncif

Where it comes from

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 poncifs

literary, rare 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.

Talk about this word

Cite this

MLA

"poncif." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/poncif. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

poncif. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/poncif

Chicago

"poncif." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/poncif.

BibTeX

@misc{poncif_2026,
  title = {poncif},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/poncif},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}