tautology

noun [tɔːˈtɒlədʒi]

pronunciation

Editorial team; lemma absent from CMUdict (pipeline/ipa-en.mjs: tautology BRAK); stress from Webster Tau*tol"o*gy; AmE/BrE variant possible; confirm with a phonetician; no frequency figure, open source

Tautology is a style fault and figure: restating one judgment in other words, or casting a thing as its own cause; apart from pleonasm and ellipsis.

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Definitions

ling. / rhet. / styl. In style and rhetoric: a writer restates one judgment in other wording, or presents a thing as cause, condition, or consequence of itself. Axis sits at sameness of sense. Pleonasm neighbours it through lexeme surplus. Ellipsis lies on the opposite quantity pole.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
hist. lex. Arct 1921: Tautologia covers restating the same thoughts in other words. Brückner skips. Webster TAUTOLOGY (Rhet.): same meaning in different words; needless idea-repetition; thing as its own cause; Addison; always a fault vs repetition. Skeat: Gk. ταὐτολογία. Nearby: TAUTOLOGIC through TAUTOLOGOUS.

source
Editorial team; facts: M. Arct 1921 (Tautologia); A. Brückner 1927 (no tautolog*); Webster 1913 (TAUTOLOGY; TAUTOLOGIC; TAUTOLOGICAL; TAUTOLOGIST; TAUTOLOGIZE; TAUTOLOGOUS); W. W. Skeat 1910 (TAUTOLOGY), open source
didact. / rhet. Classroom talk places the lemma beside pleonasm, ellipsis, anaphora, epiphora, apostrophe, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, litotes, irony, antithesis, oxymoron, metaphor, simile, stylistics, rhetoric, and semantics. Fault, emphasis, and logical-tautology borders need review.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
colloq. Casual notes dump every echo or every logical tautology under this label. This card keeps one axis: restating one judgment in other wording (or a thing as its own cause). Foils: pleonasm, ellipsis, hyperbole. Apart from plain iteration without the figure.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Examples

Webster under TAUTOLOGY (Rhet.) cites Addison lines on dawn, morning, and clouds as casting day through the same elements; that is rhetorical tautology, not plain wordiness.

source
Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (TAUTOLOGY), open source
Morning drill ran on deliberate same-sense restatement in other wording; pleonasm returned on the lexeme-surplus side, ellipsis on the omission side, hyperbole on the scale-overstatement side.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Source shelf: Arct Tautologia (1921) with the same-thoughts-in-other-words axis, Webster TAUTOLOGY (1913), Skeat 1910 (Gk. ταὐτολογία), Brückner with no tautolog* lemma.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
A worksheet that stamped every echo as rhetorical tautology erased the split between same-sense restatement and pleonasm (lexeme surplus) or plain iteration.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Board labels: tautology (same-sense restatement) | pleonasm (surplus) | ellipsis (omission) | hyperbole | litotes | stylistics, keeping sense-restatement apart from lexeme surplus, omission, scale overstatement, understatement, and the style domain.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Usage

Casual notes may brand any echo as tautology with no axis. Seminar peels layers: restating one judgment in other wording; a thing cast as its own cause (Webster TAUTOLOGY); pleonasm as lexeme-surplus foil; ellipsis as omission foil. Arct keeps Tautologia on the same-thoughts axis with different wording. Webster keeps the lemma on rhetorical sameness and on fault, set apart from warranted repetition. Skeat traces Greek ταὐτολογία and cites Fuller Worthies Kent. Brückner skips. Without layers only a hollow slogan about echo remains.

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Open-book record. In Arct (1921) the Polish lemma marks restating identical thoughts through altered diction. Webster 1913 under TAUTOLOGY (Rhet.) records sameness of meaning across different wording, needless idea-echo, and an object cast as its own cause, own condition, or own consequence; Addison example; Syn. Repetition (tautology always a fault). Skeat 1910: L. tautologia, Gk. ταὐτολογία via ταὐτολόγος, ταὐτό (τὸ αὐτό), and -λόγος / λέγειν; derivatives tautologic, tautological, tautologist, tautologize; Fuller Worthies Kent. Brückner 1927 leaves the Polish lemma blank. Derivation under etymology.

source

Editorial team; facts: M. Arct 1921 (Tautologia); Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 (TAUTOLOGY); W. W. Skeat 1910 (TAUTOLOGY); A. Brückner 1927 (no lemma), open source

Careful English usage marks same-sense restatement when compression talk flips and when sameness adds nothing to sense or sound (Webster). Editors drop worksheets that stamp every echo as the rhetorical fault and drop glosses that never name the same-sense axis. The tautology / pleonasm / ellipsis / hyperbole border stays debated. Chronology of the label stays blank until a primary page is cited. Polish counterpart: tautologia (SGJP present).

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Workshops place same-sense restatement among tropes next to pleonasm, ellipsis, anaphora, epiphora, apostrophe, alliteration, assonance, antithesis, oxymoron, irony, euphemism, hyperbole, litotes, simile, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, onomatopoeia, stylistics, rhetoric, and semantics. CMUdict lacks tautology (editorial IPA /tɔːˈtɒlədʒi/). Polish tautologia sits in SGJP. Live neighbours include those tropes. Without the same-sense axis the label collapses into pleonasm talk or plain echo talk.

source

Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (TAUTOLOGY); CMUdict (tautology absent); SGJP / Morfeusz 2 (tautologia present), open source

Word forms

Countable noun: singular tautology / plural tautologies. Nearby Webster forms: tautologic / tautological (a.), tautologically (adv.), tautologist (n.), tautologize (v.i.), tautologous (a., rare). CMUdict lemma tautology absent.

forms in use

przypadek	forma
singular	tautology
plural	tautologies
related adjective (Webster)	tautologic / tautological (Webster TAUTOLOGIC; TAUTOLOGICAL)
related adverb (Webster)	tautologically (Webster TAUTOLOGICAL)
related agent noun (Webster)	tautologist (Webster TAUTOLOGIST)
related verb (Webster)	tautologize (Webster TAUTOLOGIZE)
related adjective rare (Webster)	tautologous (Webster TAUTOLOGOUS; rare)

Word forms: Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (TAUTOLOGY; TAUTOLOGIC; TAUTOLOGICAL; TAUTOLOGIST; TAUTOLOGIZE; TAUTOLOGOUS); CMUdict (tautology absent) · source

Collocations

stylistic tautology

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
tautology against pleonasm

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
same-judgment restatement

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
rhetorical tautology

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
distinguish tautology from ellipsis

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Synonyms · Antonyms

Synonyms tautologia (Polish counterpart; SGJP present; Arct Tautologia; check scope at review), needless repetition of an idea (loose descriptive neighbour; Webster TAUTOLOGY; check scope at review), same meaning in different words (approximation; Arct Tautologia; Webster TAUTOLOGY; check scope at review), restating the same thoughts in other words (approximation; Arct Tautologia; check scope at review)

source

Editorial team; facts: SGJP / Morfeusz 2 (tautologia present); M. Arct 1921 (Tautologia), open source

Antonyms conciseness without sense restatement (contrast: wording without needless same-judgment restatement; check scope at review), ellipsis (axis contrast: omission of context-obvious words, not same-judgment restatement; live EN pair; not a clean antonym of the label alone), statement without same-judgment restatement (contrast: wording without restating the same idea; check scope at review)

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Etymology

English tautology rests on Webster's TAUTOLOGY card: rhetorical sameness of sense across variant phrasing; needless idea-echo; an object cast as cause, condition, or consequence of itself (Addison example); neighbouring cards cover TAUTOLOGIC, TAUTOLOGICAL, TAUTOLOGIST, TAUTOLOGIZE, TAUTOLOGOUS. Skeat 1910 treats TAUTOLOGY as Latin tautologia from Greek ταὐτολογία (saying the same thing again) via ταὐτολόγος, ταὐτό (τὸ αὐτό, the same), and -λόγος / λέγειν (to speak); listed derivatives include tautologic, tautological, tautologist, tautologize; Fuller Worthies Kent. Arct 1921 indexes Tautologia. Brückner 1927 does not index tautolog*. We avoid copying dictionary wording. Polish counterpart: tautologia. Axis of this card: rhetorical / stylistic same-judgment restatement.

source

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 (TAUTOLOGY; TAUTOLOGIC; TAUTOLOGICAL; TAUTOLOGIST), open source

also

W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Oxford 1910 (TAUTOLOGY), open source

also

M. Arct, Słownik wyrazów obcych, 9th ed., Warsaw 1921 (Tautologia), open source

also

A. Brückner, Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego, Kraków 1927 (no tautolog* lemma), open source

Related words

pleonasm , axis foil (lexeme surplus, not same-judgment restatement); EN pair already live
ellipsis , axis foil (omission of a word, not same-judgment restatement); EN pair already live
apostrophe , trope neighbour (second-person address); EN pair already live
anaphora , trope neighbour (shared lexeme at openings); EN pair already live
epiphora , trope neighbour (shared lexeme at closings); EN pair already live
alliteration , trope neighbour (consonant echo); EN pair already live
assonance , trope neighbour (vowel echo); EN pair already live
onomatopoeia , trope neighbour (sound-of-thing echo); EN pair already live
irony , foil along the sense axis (reversal); EN pair already live
antithesis , trope neighbour (opposing members); EN pair already live
oxymoron , trope neighbour; EN pair already live
hyperbole , axis foil (scale overstatement, not same-judgment restatement); EN pair already live
litotes , axis foil (understatement); EN pair already live
simile , foil along the likeness axis (open pairing with like / as); EN pair already live
metaphor , trope neighbour (transfer); EN pair already live
euphemism , trope neighbour (etiquette softening); EN pair already live
metonymy , trope neighbour (contiguity transfer); EN pair already live
synecdoche , trope neighbour (part for whole); EN pair already live
stylistics , domain of style (tautology axis sits in stylistics); EN pair already live
rhetoric , domain of tropes; EN pair already live
semantics , sense and reference neighbour; EN pair already live
tautologia , Polish counterpart (SGJP present; Webster TAUTOLOGY)

Related entries

The same entry in Polish: tautologia

Questions and answers

What does tautology mean?

It marks a stylistic and rhetorical fault or device: the writer restates one judgment with fresh wording, or casts a thing as its own cause. Pleonasm is surplus wording beyond need. Ellipsis omits context-obvious words. Hyperbole overstates scale. Plain echo without the figure fails to replace this card.

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

How does tautology differ from pleonasm?

Tautology on this card keeps same-sense restatement in other words (Arct Tautologia; Webster TAUTOLOGY). Pleonasm (Arct Pleonazm; Webster PLEONASM) keeps surplus wording beyond need, often through near-synonymous piles. Same-sense axis differs from lexeme-surplus axis; school shortcuts blur the labels often.

source

Editorial team; facts: M. Arct 1921 (Tautologia; Pleonazm); Webster 1913 (TAUTOLOGY; PLEONASM), open source

How does tautology differ from ellipsis and hyperbole?

Under tautology the axis sits at restating one judgment in other wording (Arct Tautologia; Webster TAUTOLOGY). Ellipsis (Arct Elipsa sense omission; Webster ELLIPSIS) is deliberate omission of context-obvious words. Hyperbole (Webster HYPERBOLE) overstates scale. Axis foil: same-sense restatement versus omission versus scale overstatement.

source

Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (TAUTOLOGY); M. Arct 1921 (Tautologia), open source

Where does the word tautology come from, and what forms sit with it?

Webster 1913 ties TAUTOLOGY to rhetorical same-meaning restatement and to fault; TAUTOLOGIC, TAUTOLOGICAL, TAUTOLOGIST, TAUTOLOGIZE, TAUTOLOGOUS sit nearby. Skeat 1910: TAUTOLOGY (L. tautologia; Gk. ταὐτολογία; ταὐτολόγος; ταὐτό; -λόγος / λέγειν; Fuller Worthies Kent). Arct 1921: Tautologia. Brückner 1927: no lemma. Forms: tautology / tautologies. Editorial IPA (CMUdict absent): /tɔːˈtɒlədʒi/. Polish pair: tautologia (SGJP present).

source

Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913; CMUdict (tautology absent); SGJP / Morfeusz 2 (tautologia present), open source

Is every repetition a tautology?

No. Any iteration can be plain economy or warranted repetition (Webster sets the lemma apart from repetition). Tautology holds same-sense restatement in other wording as a stylistic or rhetorical fault or device (Webster: always a fault). Without that axis the label collapses into pleonasm talk, hyperbole talk, or plain echo.

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)