pleonasm
/ˈpliː.əˌnæz.əm/ noun
Forms pleonasms
- noun (uncountable, rhetoric) Redundancy in wording.
- noun (countable) A phrase involving pleonasm; a phrase containing one or more words which are redundant because their meaning is expressed elsewhere in the phrase.
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Late Latin pleonasmus, from Ancient Greek πλεονασμός (pleonasmós), from πλεονάζω (pleonázō, “to be superfluous”), from πλείων (pleíōn, “more”).
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Redundancy of language in speaking or writing; the use of more words than are necessary to express the idea; as, I saw it with my own eyes.
Etymology [L. pleonasmus, Gr. Full, a., and cf. Poly-, Plus.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “pleonasm”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details