Definition:
Redundancy; use of words to emphasize what is clear without them. See Common Redundancies.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "excessive, abundant"Examples and Observations:
- "The most unkindest cut of all."
(William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar) - "PLEONASM, n. An army of words escorting a corporal of thought."
(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary) - "Let us gather together."
- "As a rhetorical figure, [a pleonasm] gives an utterance an additional semantic dimension, as in Hamlet's dictum about his father: 'He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again' (Shakespeare. Hamlet, I.2.186-187), where 'man' contains the semantic markers (+ human) and (+ male) contained in 'father' and 'he,' but according to the context it has the specific meaning 'ideal man.'"
(Heinrich F. Plett, "Pleonasm," in Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, Oxford University Press, 2001) - "Ears pierced while you wait."
- "I forgot my PIN number for the ATM machine."
- "Dougan uses many words where few would do, as if pleonasm were a way of wringing every possibility out of the material he has, and stretching sentences a form of spreading the word."
(Paula Cocozza, review of How Dynamo Kiev Beat the Luftwaffe, in The Independent, March 2, 2001) - "It's déjà vu all over again."
(attributed to Yogi Berra)
Pronunciation: PLEE-en-IZ=em
Also Known As: pleonasmus, superabundancia, macrologia
