tautology

English

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Tautology (logic)

Wikipedia

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /tɔˈtɒl.ə.d͡ʒi/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /tɔˈtɑl.ə.d͡ʒi/
• Rhymes: -ɒlədʒi

Noun

tautology (countable and uncountable, plural tautologies)

1. (uncountable) Redundant use of words, a pleonasm, an unnecessary and tedious repetition.

   It is tautology to say, "Forward Planning".

2. (countable) An expression that features tautology.

   The expression "raze to the ground" is a tautology, since the word "raze" includes the notion "to the ground".

   • 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy:

     Pure mathematics consists of tautologies, analogous to ‘men are men’, but usually more complicated.

3. (countable, logic, propositional logic) A statement that is true for all truth values of its propositional variables.
4. (countable, logic, first-order logic) A statement that is true for all truth values of its Boolean atoms.

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of “linguistics: expression”): contradiction in terms
• (antonym(s) of “in logic”): contradiction
• (antonym(s) of “literary”): oxymoron

Coordinate terms

• (in logic): contingency, contradiction

Derived terms

terms derived from tautology (noun)

• tautological
• tautologically
• tautologise
• tautologist
• tautologous
• tautologously

Translations

uncountable: redundant use of words

Bulgarian: повторение (bg) (povtorenie) Catalan: tautologia f French: tautologie (fr) f Galician: tautoloxía f German: Pleonasmus (de) m Greek: ταυτολογία (el) f (taftología) Japanese: 同語反復 (ja) (どうごはんぷく, dōgo hanpuku), トートロジー (ja) (tōtorojī) Occitan: tautologia f Polish: pleonazm (pl) m, tautologia (pl) f, masło maślane (pl) n (colloquial) Portuguese: tautologia (pt) f, pleonasmo (pt) m, redundância (pt) f Romanian: tautologie (ro) f, pleonasm (ro) n Russian: тавтоло́гия (ru) f (tavtológija) Scottish Gaelic: ath-bhriathrachas m Serbo-Croatian: zalihost (sh) f, redundancija (sh) f Spanish: tautología (es) f, pleonasmo (es) m, redundancia (es) f Swedish: tautologi (sv) c Tagalog: pagpapaliguy-ligoy Ukrainian: тавтоло́гія f (tavtolóhija)

expression that features tautology

Chinese: 套套邏輯／套套逻辑 (zh), 套套逻辑 (zh) (tàotàoluóji); 廢話／废话 (zh) (fèihuà), 废话 (zh) (fèihuà) Dutch: tautologie (nl) f Finnish: tautologia (fi), toisto (fi) French: tautologie (fr) f, lapalissade (fr) f, pléonasme (fr) m, truisme (fr) m German: Tautologie (de) f Greek: ταυτολογία (el) f (taftología) Hungarian: tautológia (hu) Italian: tautologia (it) f Japanese: 同語反復 (ja) (どうごはんぷく, dōgo hanpuku), トートロジー (ja) (tōtorojī) Macedonian: тавтологија f (tavtologija) Portuguese: redundância (pt) f, pleonasmo (pt) m, tautologia (pt) f Romanian: tautologie (ro) f, pleonasm (ro) n Serbo-Croatian: tautologija (sh) f Spanish: redundancia (es) f, pleonasmo (es) m, tautología (es) f (rhetoric) Swedish: tautologi (sv) c Ukrainian: тавтоло́гія f (tavtolóhija)

in logic

Catalan: tautologia f Czech: tautologie (cs) f Dutch: tautologie (nl) f Finnish: tautologia (fi) French: tautologie (fr) f German: Tautologie (de) f Greek: ταυτολογία (el) f (taftología) Hungarian: tautológia (hu) Icelandic: sísanna f Italian: tautologia (it) f Japanese: 恒真式 (こうしんしき, kōshin shiki), トートロジー (ja) (tōtorojī) Macedonian: тавтологија f (tavtologija) Polish: tautologia (pl) f Portuguese: tautologia (pt) f Serbo-Croatian: tautologija (sh) f Slovak: tautológia f Spanish: tautología (es) f Swedish: tautologi (sv) c Ukrainian: тавтоло́гія f (tavtolóhija)

See also

• pleonasm
• redundancy
• Tautology on Wikipedia.Wikipedia