I'm not sure it's exactly what you're looking for but you might call such a saying a platitude.

Answer from Curtis H. on Stack Exchange
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Merriam-Webster
merriam-webster.com › thesaurus › meaningless
MEANINGLESS Synonyms: 78 Similar and Opposite Words | Merriam-Webster Thesaurus
Synonyms for MEANINGLESS: pointless, absurd, stupid, inane, silly, irrational, empty, foolish; Antonyms of MEANINGLESS: meaningful, significant, suggestive, valid, logical, expressive, reasonable, rational
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Thesaurus.com
thesaurus.com › browse › meaningless
MEANINGLESS Synonyms & Antonyms - 71 words | Thesaurus.com
If I wanted to watch a pair of agitated fortysomethings engage in a comically meaningless tangle, I would hit the parking lot at a travel soccer tournament.
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Cambridge Dictionary
dictionary.cambridge.org › us › thesaurus › meaningless-words
MEANINGLESS WORDS - 23 Synonyms and Antonyms - Cambridge English
Click on any word or phrase to go to its thesaurus page. ... Synonyms for meaningless words from Random House Roget's College Thesaurus, Revised and Updated Edition © 2000 Random House, Inc.
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Cambridge Dictionary
dictionary.cambridge.org › us › thesaurus › meaningless
MEANINGLESS - 77 Synonyms and Antonyms - Cambridge English
Go to the thesaurus article about these synonyms and antonyms of meaningless. ... If someone or something is useless, they do not help you in any way. Cambridge English Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press ... These are words and phrases related to meaningless.
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Vocabulary.com
vocabulary.com › dictionary › meaningless
Meaningless - Definition, Meaning & Synonyms | Vocabulary.com
Words in a book will be meaningless to you if they're written in a language you don't understand, and the small talk you engage in when you run into an acquaintance at the supermarket is often meaningless too. You can probably think of rules that don't have any good reason behind them, and these are also meaningless. When something is important to you, it has meaning — and when it's not, it's meaningless. ... DISCLAIMER: These example ...
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WordHippo
wordhippo.com › what-is › another-word-for › meaningless.html
What is another word for meaningless? | Meaningless Synonyms - WordHippo Thesaurus
Synonyms for meaningless include pointless, aimless, purposeless, futile, useless, valueless, inconsequential, insignificant, trifling and trivial. Find more similar words at wordhippo.com!
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Great Demo
greatdemo.com › home › "stunningly awful demo" series › the meaningless-filler gratuitous-phrases vocabulary list
The Meaningless-Filler Gratuitous-Phrases Vocabulary List - Great Demo! and Doing Discovery
January 27, 2023 - Here’s an example of a vocabulary felony offense: “So now you are actually looking at the actual screen, which is the result of the search we actually ran….” · What we have here is a case of repetitive use of a Spurious Spacer. As audience members, we grow so weary of the word or phrase that we (actually) may stop listening….
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/asklinguistics › meaningless words
r/asklinguistics on Reddit: Meaningless Words
March 24, 2024 -

Is there a term for a word that doesn't really have a meaning anymore, but people still use it like it does?

For example, terrific/terrible, magnificent, amazing.

I'm trying to come up with a list so I can tell my students to avoid them (or at least use them correctly) in their paper.

I want to give them some examples. I can think of a few, but I don't know every "meaningless" word.

Any help would be appreciated!

Edit to add:

What I mean is generally the words are overused to the point where they don't hold the meaning they once did. Example: "there are interesting developments in the field of electrical engineering" nonspecific and is a waste of words. Where "advantageous" might be better than interesting.

Or the overuse of "beautiful" or "wonderful."

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Collins Dictionary
collinsdictionary.com › us › dictionary › english-thesaurus › meaningless
Synonyms of MEANINGLESS | Collins American English Thesaurus
Synonyms for MEANINGLESS: pointless, empty, futile, inane, inconsequential, insignificant, senseless, useless, vain, worthless, …
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Mises Institute
mises.org › power-market › orwells-meaningless-words-redux
Orwell's Meaningless Words, Redux | Mises Institute
April 11, 2024 - Words like social justice, bigot, xenophobe, racist, fascist, misogynist, socialist, Dreamer, snowflake, liberal, conservative, and democracy are the meaningless words of our day. Nobody knows what they mean anymore. They are used as bullets in a form of verbal warfare, not as honest descriptions.
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Dictionary.com
dictionary.com › browse › meaningless
MEANINGLESS Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
If I wanted to watch a pair of agitated fortysomethings engage in a comically meaningless tangle, I would hit the parking lot at a travel soccer tournament.
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YourDictionary
thesaurus.yourdictionary.com › home › meaningless
Meaningless Synonyms: 23 Synonyms and Antonyms for Meaningless | YourDictionary.com
Synonyms for MEANINGLESS: insignificant, senseless, unimportant, pointless, vague, mindless, absurd, aimless, blank, empty, useless, nonmeaningful; Antonyms for MEANINGLESS: meaningful, worthwhile, significant, useful, valuable.
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Collins Dictionary
collinsdictionary.com › us › sentences › english › meaningless
Examples of 'MEANINGLESS' in a sentence
We welcome feedback: report an example sentence to the Collins team. Read more… · My life is meaningless now.
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MN350
mn350.org › home › mn350 blog › meaningless or meaningful words?
Meaningless or meaningful words? - MN350
October 18, 2019 - For example, I like the term climate crisis better than some. But what or who is suffering the crisis? It’s just the climate, and we’ve already know that the word is too vague and meaningless. In other words, the crisis isn’t happening to us. It’s just or only happening to the climate.
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Cambridge Dictionary
dictionary.cambridge.org › us › thesaurus › meaningless-talk
MEANINGLESS TALK - 23 Synonyms and Antonyms - Cambridge English
Click on any word or phrase to go to its thesaurus page. ... Synonyms for meaningless talk from Random House Roget's College Thesaurus, Revised and Updated Edition © 2000 Random House, Inc.
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Related Words
relatedwords.io › meaningless
Meaningless Words - 400+ Words Related to Meaningless
By default, the words are sorted ... alphabetically so you can get meaningless words starting with a particular letter. You can also filter the word list so it only shows words that are also related to another word of your choosing. So for example, you could enter "insignificant" ...