Tautology

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Tautology \Tau*tol"o*gy\, n. [L. tautologia, Gr. ?: cf. F.
     tautologie.] (Rhet.)
     A repetition of the same meaning in different words; needless
     repetition of an idea in different words or phrases; a
     representation of anything as the cause, condition, or
     consequence of itself, as in the following lines: 


  
           The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers,
           And heavily in clouds brings on the day. --Addison.
     [1913 Webster]
  
     Syn: Repetition.
  
     Usage: {Tautology}, {Repetition}. There may be frequent
            repetitions (as in legal instruments) which are
            warranted either by necessity or convenience; but
            tautology is always a fault, being a sameness of
            expression which adds nothing to the sense or the
            sound.
            [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  tautology
       n 1: (logic) a statement that is necessarily true; "the statement
            `he is brave or he is not brave' is a tautology"
       2: useless repetition; "to say that something is `adequate
          enough' is a tautology"

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  83 Moby Thesaurus words for "tautology":
     abundance, amplitude, battology, bedizenment, circumambages,
     circumbendibus, circumlocution, cloud of words, copiousness,
     diffuseness, diffusion, diffusiveness, duplication,
     duplication of effort, effusion, effusiveness, embellishment,
     expletive, extravagance, exuberance, fat, featherbedding,
     fecundity, fertility, filling, fluency, formlessness, frill,
     frills, frippery, gingerbread, gush, gushing, iteration, logorrhea,
     long-windedness, luxury, macrology, needlessness, ornamentation,
     outpour, overadornment, overflow, overlap, padding, palilogy,
     payroll padding, periphrase, periphrasis, pleonasm, prodigality,
     productivity, profuseness, profusion, prolificacy, prolificity,
     prolixity, rampancy, rankness, redundance, redundancy, reiteration,
     reiterativeness, repetition, repetition for effect,
     repetitiousness, repetitiveness, roundabout, stammering,
     stuttering, superabundance, superfluity, superfluousness,
     superflux, talkativeness, tautologism, teemingness, tirade,
     unnecessariness, verbality, verbiage, verbosity, wordiness
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  tautology
       
           A {proposition} which is always true.
       
          Compare: {paradox}.
       
          {The Linguistic Smarandache Tautologies,
          (http://www.gallup.unm.edu/~smarandache/tautolog.txt)}.
       
          (1999-07-28)