clichéyoudaoicibaDictYouDict[cliché 词源字典]
cliché: [19] Originally, French clicher meant literally ‘stereotype’ – that is, ‘print from a plate made by making a type-metal cast from a mould of a printing surface’. The word was supposedly imitative of the sound made when the mould was dropped into the molten type metal. Hence a word or phrase that was cliché – had literally been repeated time and time again in identical form from a single printing plate – had become hackneyed.
[cliché etymology, cliché origin, 英语词源]
cliche (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
1825, "electrotype, stereotype," from French cliché, a technical word in printer's jargon for "stereotype block," noun use of past participle of clicher "to click" (18c.), supposedly echoic of the sound of a mold striking molten metal. Figurative extension to "trite phrase, worn-out expression" is first attested 1888, following the course of stereotype. Related: Cliched (1928).