Non-mathematical Usage
'Lowest common denominator' is often used as a figure of speech meaning the most basic, least sophisticated level of taste, sensibility, or opinion among a group of people. The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest illustration comes from H. G. Wells' 1910 serialisation of The New Machiavelli: Most clubs have a common link, a lowest common denominator in the Club Bore, who spares no one. The term had been used earlier in 1906 by British Labour politician Stephen Walsh during a constituency speech.
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Famous quotes containing the word usage:
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)