tautologicaladj.
/ˌtɔːtəˈlɒdʒᵻkl/, U.S. /ˌtɔdəˈlɑdʒəkəl/, /ˌtɑdəˈlɑdʒəkəl/ 1.
a. Characterized by or falling prey to tautology; involving or including a phrase, expression, etc., which is characterized by tautology.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > literature > style of language or writing > copiousness > [adjective] > repetitious > needlessly repetitious
tautological1620
tautologous1646
tautologic1763
1620 T. Granger Syntagma Logicum 387 Lest thy discourse be tedious, Tautologicall, erroneous.
1670 T. Blount Νομο-λεξικον: Law-dict. at Alnager Measurer, and Alneger, which last, though it be a Tautological expression (Aulnage and Measure, being the same thing denoted in two Languages) yet long usage and custom have brought them to distinct Offices.
1704 tr. A. Furetière Rebellion 66 After many an Hour spent, many a Tautological Harangue made to no purpose; not a single Cast impoint could be found.
1794 Eng. Rev. Oct. 66 To feel conscious is a tautological phrase—To feel is to be conscious—feeling implies consciousness.
1800 in W. B. Scoones Four Cent. Eng. Lett. (1880) 355 Now and then, in the career of declamation, he becomes tautological and ineffective.
1837 F. Marryat Olla Podrida xl, in Metrop. Mag. The term pussy cat may be considered tautological.
1894 Railroad Trainmen's Jrnl. Sept. 826/2 The speeches..consist of a monotonous reiteration of tautological platitudes.
1934 P. Hamilton Plains of Cement xxiv. 207 ‘I do think it's so unnecessary to be Unnecessary ,’ said Mr. Eccles, getting into slight tautological difficulties.
2012 Guardian (Nexis) 22 Aug. (Features section) 5 The term [he] was groping for was not the contradictory ‘legitimate rape’ but the tautological ‘forcible rape’.
b. Of an argument or definition: merely restating in different words the very thing which is to be explained, shown, or defined.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > understanding > reason, faculty of reasoning > lack of reasoning, illogicality > [adjective] > circular
circulatory1597
circulary1610
circular?1637
tautologicala1856
a1856 W. Hamilton Lect. Metaphysics (1860) IV. xxiv. 14 It [sc. a definition] should not be Tautological,—what is contained in the defined, should not be repeated in the defining clause.
1869 C. M. Ingleby Introd. Metaph. ii. ii. 176 One writer..desperately declares that the Laws of Motion are mere truisms, or tautological judgments.
1905 E. E. Jones Primer of Logic vii. 119 A definition may give a Proximate Genus and Difference; it may be clear, simple, affirmative, not tautological, and definition and word defined may be exactly equivalent.
1950 Jrnl. Philos. 47 595 Some of Hume's critics have objected that his proof of this thesis is simply tautological reasoning from definitions.
1989 Nature 4 May 23/3 To argue this way is tautological.
2000 Calif. Law Rev. 88 1127 This statement can incorporate all action simply by adopting a tautological definition of ‘self-interest’ as being any act or thing that gives well-being to the actor.
2. gen. Characterized by repetition; repetitive; (in early use, of an echo) repeating the same sound several times (now rare).
ΘΚΠ
the world > time > frequency > [adjective] > repeated or recurring
recurring1511
repeated1577
reiterated1592
round1620
recurrent1666
tautological1677
recurrable1846
the world > physical sensation > hearing and noise > degree, kind, or quality of sound > resonance or sonority > [adjective] > reverberating or echoing > echoing several times
tautological1677
1677 R. Plot Nat. Hist. Oxford-shire 7 These return syllables and words, the same oftentimes repeated, and may therefore be stiled Tautological Echo's.
1758 tr. J. G. Keyssler Trav. (new ed.) II. 155 Any kind of Noise in the Church causes a loud and tautological Echo, of a very long Continuance.
1781 J. Byng Diary 3 July in Torrington Diaries (1934) I. 48 The walk around them is two miles, and a half, and guiltless of crossing or tautological twists.
1845 Hogg's Weekly Instructor 25 Oct. 143/1 Multiple or tautological echoes, are those which return syllables and words oftentimes repeated.
1881 Contemp. Rev. May 330 Delightful beyond measure were its endless twists and turns of a tautological yet pliant metre.
1943 R. Graves Story Marie Powell iii. 36 Such a tautological echo is found at Rome..walls, being smooth, bandy the echo between them.
1976 P. Conroy Great Santini viii. 108 Colonel Meecham entered the room slapping the swagger stick in a steady, tautological rhythm that seemed ominous, even predatory.
1996 Art Press (Eng. ed.) July 30/2 Olivero Toscani cynically expressed the truth of the Bosnian capital in tautological images of war where nothing was hidden.
3. With with. Identical or exactly equivalent to; spec. (of a word, phrase, etc.) equivalent in meaning to one already used, and hence constituting a tautology.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > relationship > identity > [adjective] > identical
oneOE
all oneOE
alikea1393
all like1477
indifferent1530
selfsame1582
identical1601
same1621
identitial1635
identica1657
indistinguishable1658
identifical1673
undistinguishable1679
tautological1689
indistinctible1781
1689 G. Harvey Art of curing Dis. by Expectation xvi. 125 Compound Waters..tautological the one with the other.
1832 Genesee (Rochester, N.Y.) Farmer 2 June 172/1 The phrase ‘finest and best’ was changed into ‘first and best’—suppressing an adjective applicable to the fleece, and supplying one entirely tautological with ‘best’.
1869 S. Kerl Elements Composition & Rhetoric 187 And what follows the colon, in the second quoted sentence, is so nearly tautological with what precedes it, that it is better to omit the latter part of this sentence altogether.
1991 K. Waterhouse English our English i. 64 Its sin would be not so much its missing auxiliaries (omitted because they are tautological with probably) as its clumsy construction.
2003 C. Mylonas Serbian Orthodox Fund. iv. 110 The political authority of the state..was tautological with the establishment of the necessary preconditions..of the collective-socialist-entity.
4. Logic and Philosophy. Of a formula of the propositional calculus: that is a tautology (tautology n. 5).
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > logic > logical truth > [adjective] > tautological
tautological1922
tautologous1922
1922 C. K. Ogden et al. tr. L. Wittgenstein Tractatus 97 In the one case the proposition is true for all the truth-possibilities of the elementary propositions. We say that the truth-conditions are tautological [Ger. tautologisch].
1926 F. P. Ramsey in Proc. London Math. Soc. 25 341 The idea to be defined is one of the essential sides of mathematical propositions, their content, and their form. Their content must be completely generalized, and their form tautological.
1942 Philos. Sci. 9 265 He implies that it is an a priori proposition, but he has neither shown that it is analytic or tautological nor confessed to a rationalistic validation of synthetic judgments.
1971 G. Hunter Metalogic iii. 171 Suppose that A is an instance of a tautological schema of Q.
1979 P. Heath tr. M. Schlick Moritz Schlick: Philos. Papers II. 385 The analytical or tautological proposition, however, is at the same time devoid of content, whereas the observation statement gives us the satisfaction of a genuine acquaintance with reality.
2007 Jrnl. Symbolic Logic 72 1194 One question asked..is whether the set of tautological propositional formulas uniquely determines the dimension of the underlying vector space.
Derivatives
tautoˈlogicalness n. rare the quality or state of being tautological; cf. tautologicality n.
ΚΠ
1727 N. Bailey Universal Etymol. Eng. Dict. II Tautologicalness, tautological Quality, or Fulness of Tautologies.
1970 Amer. Educ. Res. Jrnl. 7 363 Subject's responses were scored by two trained judges on each of such dimensions as novelty, tautologicalness, richness or implied meaning.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2014; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.1620