tautological

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   needlessly repeating the same idea in different words

   The phrase "a new innovation" is tautological because every innovation is new.

2. 2
   adj

   in logic, true solely because of logical form, regardless of the truth of its components

   The statement "Either the switch is on or it is not" is tautological.

From tautology + -ical. Tautology entered English through Late Latin tautologia from Greek tautología, from tautó ("the same") + lógos ("word, statement"). The rhetorical sense concerns needless repetition; logic later specialized the term for a proposition true by its form.

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