tautology
(tɔːˈtɒlədʒɪ)
[ad. late L. tautologia (c 350 in Mar. Plotin. Sacerd.), a. Gr. ταὐτολογία, f. ταὐτολόγος: see tautologous; in F. tautologie.]
a. A repetition of the same statement. b. The repetition (esp. in the immediate context) of the same word or phrase, or of the same idea or statement in other words: usually as a fault of style.
| 1587 Fleming Contn. Holinshed III. 1533/1 This ambassage is reported in the historie of Scotland, wherevnto (for the auoiding of tautologie) we refer the reader. a 1653 Gouge Comm. Heb. (1655) 99 To shew that there is no tautology, no vain repetition of one and the same thing therein. 1686 Goad Celest. Bodies i. xii. 56 The Taedium of Tautology is odious to every Pen and Ear. a 1748 Watts Improv. Mind ii. ii. §4 By securing you from an appearance of tautology, or repeating the same words too often. 1790 Wesley Wks. (1872) IV. 487 That villanous tautology of lawyers, which is the scandal of our nation. 1869 Farrar Fam. Speech iv. (1873) 134 One leading syllable thrusting itself with the most obtrusive tautology through a whole sentence. |
c. With a and pl. An instance of this; a tautological phrase or expression; † a repetition of something already said (quot. 1599).
| 1579 Fulke Confut. Sanders 644 It is a foolish tautologie, for you sayed the same immediatly before. 1599 Broughton's Let. ix. 32 Euery later paperwork of yours is but a Tautology of the former. 1698 Wanley in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden) 258, I called the library a venerable place; the Books sacred reliques of Antiquity, &c.; with half a dozen tautologies. 1844 Ld. Brougham Brit. Const. xix. §1 (1862) 309 Repetitions and tautologies are used. |
d. Applied to the repetition of a statement as its own reason, or to the identification of cause and effect.
| 1659 Pearson Creed ii. (1839) 157 To assign any thing as the cause or reason of itself, is a great absurdity, and the expression of it a vain tautology. 1662 H. More Philos. Writ. Pref. Gen. (1712) 15 The resolution of such Phaenomena as we experience in ourselves..into this vital oneness,..is no vain Tautology, or the mere saying a thing is so because it is so. 1836–7 Sir W. Hamilton Metaph. (1859) II. xxxix. 377 There is thus conceived an absolute tautology between the effect and its causes. We think the causes to contain all that is contained in the effect; the effect to contain nothing which was not contained in the causes. |
e. transf. A mere repetition of acts, incidents, or experiences; in quot. 1650, used for the sending of a thing to its place of origin.
| 1650 Fuller Pisgah ii. v. 128 Some wil object it was a real tautology to bring purples to Tyre, seeing the best of the world were made in that place. 1657 W. Dillingham Contn. Siege of Ostend in Sir. F. Vere's Comm., It was so thick stuck with bullets, that the Ordnance could scarcely shoot without a tautologie, and hitting its former bullets. 1687 Norris Coll. Misc. (1699) 324 Our whole Life is but a nauseous Tautology. 1863 Cowden Clarke Shaks. Char. i. 14 The poet has avoided a dramatic tautology (if I may so use the term) in bringing about the death of two worthy men immediately upon the heels of each other. |
f. Mod. Logic. A compound proposition which is unconditionally true for all the truth-possibilities of its elementary propositions and by virtue of its logical form.
| 1919 B. Russell Introd. Math. Philos. xviii. 203 The characteristic of logical propositions that we are in search of is the one which was felt..by those who said that it consisted in deducibility from the law of contradiction. This characteristic we may call tautology. Ibid. 205 The importance of ‘tautology’ for a definition of mathematics was pointed out to me by..Ludwig Wittgenstein, who was working on the problem. 1922 tr. Wittgenstein's Tractatus 97 The tautology..is unconditionally true. 1933 Mind XLII. 37 So taken, a postulate is a tautology and cannot be denied. 1959 Listener 19 Mar. 510/1 The simplest rigorous proof is tautology. This consists, essentially, of showing that some statement covers all possibilities. 1964 M. Black Compan. Wittgenstein's Tractatus xliii. 231 Johnson's..‘formal truth’ and ‘formal falsity’..seem to correspond exactly to W.'s ‘tautology’ and ‘contradiction’. 1979 J. A. Robinson Logic: Form & Function iii. 42 A..general decision procedure for determining whether or not a sentence is a tautology. |