Wordnet 3.0
NOUN (2)
1.
(logic) a statement that is necessarily true;
- Example: "the statement `he is brave or he is not brave' is a tautology"2.
useless repetition;
- Example: "to say that something is `adequate enough' is a tautology"
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
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]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
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"
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
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
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):
tautology
A proposition which is always true.
Compare: paradox.
The Linguistic Smarandache Tautologies,
(http://gallup.unm.edu/~smarandache/tautolog.txt).
(1999-07-28)