What are the best Chinese terms for the correct sense of the English adjective "everyday"?

Question

It seems that even CEDICT is full of the common English usage mistake confusing the adjective "everyday" with the adverbial phrase "every day". This means many dictionary sites and apps such as Pleco are also infested with this error.

Wiktionary, on the other hand, is still missing Chinese translations for many of the synonyms of "everyday". I don't have access right now to a quality bilingual dictionary.

So, which Chinese terms are the best for the correct sense of English "everyday", which means "commonplace, mundane, ordinary, quotidian, unremarkable, etc"?

I feel it might be 日常 but there's so much poor literacy in the public-edited dictionaries that I can't trust them.

Answer 1

“日常” is the closest in most contexts. It conveys the sense of "commonplace, mundane" very well.

Some example phrases: everyday life - 日常生活 everyday conversation - 日常对话/日常会话 everyday clothes - 日常服装

It can also be used as a noun: 我厌倦了重复的日常 (I grew tired of my repetitive everyday life)

Answer 2

I looked over the CC-CEDICT entries containing either "every day" or "everyday", and didn't notice any erroneous usage. Certainly not to the extent that you could say it's "infested with this error".

Perhaps you assumed the following entry must be wrong: 每天 [mei3 tian1] /every day/everyday/. But 每天 can be used as a noun ("every day"), adverb ("every day") or adjective ("everyday").

For example: ADVERB: 毛巾每天更换 Towels are changed every day. ADJECTIVE: 在家庭成员每天的习惯中培养孩子的双语能力 Bilingualism stems from everyday habits at home.

Also, it should be noted that CC-CEDICT is a Chinese-English dictionary, whereas you appear to need an English-Chinese dictionary. CC-CEDICT is not designed for people who want the Chinese equivalent of an English word.

Various Chinese words can be used to mean "everyday", but some of them are best used in particular contexts. Examples of different contexts: "everyday occurrence", "everyday life", "everyday expressions", "everyday routine". The Chinese word that can be used in more contexts than any other is probably 日常.