belonging to times long past especially of the historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; "ancient history"; "ancient civilizations such as those of the Etruscans and Sumerians"; "ancient Greece"
based on custom rather than documentation; "an unwritten law"; "rites...so ancient that they well might have had their unwritten origins in Aurignacian times"- J.L.T.C.Spence
lacking enlightenment or knowledge or culture; "this benighted country"; "benighted ages of barbarism and superstition"; "the dark ages"; "a dark age in the history of education"
overtaken by night or darkness; "benighted (or nighted) travelers hurrying toward home"
repeated too often; overfamiliar through overuse; "bromidic sermons"; "his remarks were trite and commonplace"; "hackneyed phrases"; "a stock answer"; "repeating threadbare jokes"; "parroting some timeworn axiom"; "the trite metaphor `hard as nails'"