Pleonasm
/ˈpliː.əˌnæz.əm/ noun
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Redundancy in wording. rhetoric, uncountable
"St. Jerome and St. Augustine are both sparing in the employment of the device of pleonasm."
- 2 using more words than necessary wordnet
- 3 A phrase involving pleonasm; a phrase containing one or more words which are redundant because their meaning is expressed elsewhere in the phrase. countable
Example
More examples"A black darkness is an example of a pleonasm."
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Late Latin pleonasmus, from Ancient Greek πλεονασμός (pleonasmós), from πλεονάζω (pleonázō, “to be superfluous”), from πλείων (pleíōn, “more”).