tautology
/tɔːˈtɒlədʒi
/noun (plural tautologies) [mass noun]
1The saying of the same thing twice over in different words, generally considered to be a fault of style (e.g. they arrived one after the other in succession).It is conceivable that the key to truth lies in tautology and redundancy....
- Redundancy and tautology are undesirable, and a sign of less than careful writing.
- But really, spinning out some kind of clever model to illustrate that idea is unnecessary tautology: I can say it in just a few simple words.
Synonyms
repetition, repetitiveness, repetitiousness, reiteration, redundancy, superfluity, periphrasis, iteration, duplication;
wordiness, long-windedness, prolixity, verbiage, verbosity
rare pleonasm, perissology
1.1 [count noun] A phrase or expression in which the same thing is said twice in different words.But then, Coward himself was less refined than he thought: ‘The general consensus of opinion,’ he has Hugo say, two tautologies in a mere five words....
- I'm not saying he is a sloppy reviewer, because the phrase ‘sloppy reviewer’ is a tautology when it comes to the press.
- Incidentally, white jasmine is a tautology in the Indian context.
1.2 Logic A statement that is true by necessity or by virtue of its logical form.The past, in effect, is a tautology; it is true by virtue of its logical form alone....
- It doesn't affect the validity of the statement, so you can include it without destroying your tautology.
- Some authors treated the quantity theory as a matter of causal relation and explanation, often differing as to the content and direction of explanation, whereas others saw it as a truism, identity or tautology.
Derivatives
tautological
/ adjective ...- The camp provided the Germans tautological proof of the necessity of imprisoning Untermenschen: the disgusting state of the Haftlinge of Auschwitz demonstrated their inferiority and justified their murder.
- What may seem tautological - happiness being happiness - epitomizes Traheme's use of perspectival language: to attempt to move from the subjective and to the objective.
- Those who view the question as ultimately tautological, and therefore futile, have a strong case to make; but that is not the same thing as saying the question is without use.
tautologically
- Or is knowledge, tautologically, simply what the leading professors in each field declare it to be?
- The assertion ‘I have direct experience of God’ includes the assertion ‘God exists’ thus, the conclusion ‘therefore, God exists’ follows tautologically.
- Although The Swan bills itself tautologically as ‘the most unique competition ever’, there's nothing special or shocking about full-body liposuction and total facial reconstruction any more.
tautologist
- As a meal for the mind, this great tautologist serves us here a communion wafer - thin and without body.
- Photography is not necessarily photography and only tautologists would disagree with this.
- A sports commentator and noted tautologist once spoke of a player making ‘forward progress’.
tautologize
- You ignored my reply and chose merely to tautologize your own application of the husband and wife example.
- As for other testing steps, they are the same as those described above and are not tautologized again.
- Instead of resuming, the next sentence retraces, kneads, worries, tautologizes the foregoing.
tautologous
- For many people, however, especially in England, the usage is tautologous.
- These terms, as pointed out in other parts of this book, are ambiguous, open-ended, and often tautologous.
- The word ‘until’ does in my view have as its normal English meaning a meaning which is sometimes encapsulated in the rather tautologous phrase ‘unless and until’.
Origin
Mid 16th century: via late Latin from Greek, from tautologos 'repeating what has been said', from tauto- 'same' + -logos (see -logy).