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''tautology'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904134559-00-⌔

tautology - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

tautology (countable and uncountable, plural tautologies)

  • (uncountable, rhetoric) Redundant use of words, a pleonasm, an unnecessary and tedious repetition.
    • ✤ It is tautology to say, “Forward Planning”.
  • (countable, rhetoric) An expression that features tautology.
    • ✤ The expression “raze to the ground” is a tautology, since the word “raze” includes the notion “to the ground”.
    • ✤ Pure mathematics consists of tautologies, analogous to ‘men are men’, but usually more complicated.1
  • (countable, logic, propositional logic) A statement that is true for all truth values of its propositional variables.
  • (countable, logic, first-order logic) A statement that is true for all truth values of its Boolean atoms.

Etymology

From Late Latin tautologia, from Ancient Greek ταὐτολογία (tautología) from ταὐτός (tautós, “the same”) + λόγος (lógos, “explanation”). By surface analysis, tauto- +‎ -logy.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /tɔːˈtɒləd͡ʒi/
  • (Standard Southern British, Australia, New Zealand) IPA: /toːˈtɔləd͡ʒi/
    • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • (US)
    • (without the cot–caught merger) IPA: /tɔˈtɑləd͡ʒi/
    • (cot–caught merger) IPA: /tɑˈtɑləd͡ʒi/
      • Audio (General American, cot–caught merger): 🔊
  • (Scotland) IPA: /tɔˈtɔləd͡ʒe/
  • Rhymes: -ɒlədʒi

Printed 2026-09-04.

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Footnotes

  1. 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy: ↩

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