One well-worn phrase is "with all due respect."
"As you please," she said, employing one of her well-worn phrases.
Other well-worn phrases have also lost their innocence.
This isn't a genre narrative where well-worn phrases become a stylistic choice; the sentences instead seem slack and loose.
Illegal search and seizure" is a well-worn phrase in the lexicon of any criminal defense lawyer.
A fussy mess, style over substance or a whole host of other well-worn phrases that would fit.
They demand the right sound at the right moment, even if it's a well-worn phrase.
Letter writers, to use a well-worn phrase, are entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts.
We are, I suppose, as members of the committee, and to use that well-worn phrase which I do not like, 'close to the citizen'.
At some point over the years, the well-worn phrase had come to feel more like a sinister threat than a romantic promise.