Pleonasmus

Pleonasm is the use of more words or parts of speech than are necessary to convey an idea, resulting in redundancy. The term comes from the Greek pleon “more” and a suffix meaning “having,” and it is widely used in linguistics to describe wordiness that adds little or no new information.

Pleonasm can be intentional or unintentional. In rhetoric and poetry, it may be used for emphasis, rhythm, or stylistic effect. In formal writing, however, it is often regarded as a fault to be avoided. It is distinct from tautology in that pleonasm refers to surplus wording that does not change the proposition, whereas tautology is a logical or semantic repetition that states something true by virtue of its form.

Common examples include phrases such as free gift, PIN number, ATM machine, end result, past history, true fact, each and every, and future plans. Other cases involve intensifiers that are unnecessary or repetitive, like totally unique or actual fact. Some pleonasms arise from combining two elements that encode overlapping meanings, while others come from habit or translation from another language.

In linguistic analysis, pleonasm is treated as redundancy within a sentence or phrase rather than a new or contradictory idea. It can be discussed as lexical pleonasm (redundant word choice) or syntactic/semantic pleonasm (redundant structure or meaning). Understanding pleonasm helps clarify style guidelines and improves precision in editing, while recognizing its potential rhetorical value in creative writing.