Standard Lemma guide

pleonasm

noun · 3 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • /ˈpliː.əˌnæz.əm/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • CMU ARPABET: P L IY1 AH0 N AE2 Z AH0 M Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

noun

Meaning 1

Redundancy in wording.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: rhetoric, uncountable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

A phrase involving pleonasm; a phrase containing one or more words which are redundant because their meaning is expressed elsewhere in the phrase.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

3

noun

Meaning 3

using more words than necessary

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • a tiny little child

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: verboseness, verbosity

History

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Late Latin pleonasmus, from Ancient Greek πλεονασμός (pleonasmós), from πλεονάζω (pleonázō, “to be superfluous”), from πλείων (pleíōn, “more”).

Across languages

Translations

68 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Arabic: حَشْو (ḥašw) — redundancy in wording
  • Arabic: إِطْنَاب (ʔiṭnāb) — redundancy in wording
  • Azerbaijani: pleonazm — redundancy in wording
  • Belarusian: плеана́зм (pljeanázm) — redundancy in wording
  • Catalan: pleonasme — redundancy in wording
  • Chinese Mandarin: 贅語 /赘语 (zhuìyǔ) — redundancy in wording
  • Chinese Mandarin: 贅詞 /赘词 (zhuìcí) — redundancy in wording
  • Chinese Mandarin: 贅字 /赘字 (zhuìzì) — redundancy in wording
  • Chinese Mandarin: 冗詞 /冗词 (rǒngcí) — redundancy in wording
  • Chinese Mandarin: 冗語 /冗语 (rǒngyǔ) — redundancy in wording
  • Czech: pleonasmus — redundancy in wording
  • Danish: pleonasme — redundancy in wording
  • Dutch: pleonasme — redundancy in wording
  • Esperanto: pleonasmo — redundancy in wording
  • Finnish: pleonasmi — redundancy in wording
  • French: pléonasme — redundancy in wording
  • German: Pleonasmus — redundancy in wording
  • Greek: πλεονασμός (pleonasmós) — redundancy in wording
  • Ancient Greek: πλεονασμός (pleonasmós) — redundancy in wording
  • Hungarian: pleonazmus — redundancy in wording
  • Hungarian: szószaporítás — redundancy in wording
  • Hungarian: szinonimahalmozás — redundancy in wording
  • Ido: pleonasmo — redundancy in wording
  • Indonesian: pemborosan kata — redundancy in wording
  • Indonesian: pleonasme — redundancy in wording
  • Irish: iomarcaíocht focal — redundancy in wording
  • Italian: pleonasmo — redundancy in wording
  • Japanese: 冗語 (jōgo) — redundancy in wording
  • Kazakh: плеоназм (pleonazm) — redundancy in wording
  • Kyrgyz: плеоназм (pleonazm) — redundancy in wording
  • Latin: pleonasmos — redundancy in wording
  • Latin: pleonasmus — redundancy in wording
  • Polish: pleonazm — redundancy in wording
  • Portuguese: pleonasmo — redundancy in wording
  • Russian: плеона́зм (pleonázm) — redundancy in wording
  • Serbo-Croatian: плеоназам — redundancy in wording
  • Serbo-Croatian: pleonazam — redundancy in wording
  • Spanish: pleonasmo — redundancy in wording
  • Swedish: pleonasm — redundancy in wording
  • Tagalog: panigib — redundancy in wording
  • Turkish: pleonazm — redundancy in wording
  • Turkish: laf kalabalığı — redundancy in wording
  • Turkish: haşiv — redundancy in wording
  • Turkish: doldurma — redundancy in wording
  • Ukrainian: плеона́зм (pleonázm) — redundancy in wording
  • Welsh: gair llanw — redundancy in wording
  • Chinese Mandarin: 贅語 /赘语 (zhuìyǔ) — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Chinese Mandarin: 贅詞 /赘词 (zhuìcí) — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Chinese Mandarin: 贅字 /赘字 (zhuìzì) — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Chinese Mandarin: 冗詞 /冗词 (rǒngcí) — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Chinese Mandarin: 冗語 /冗语 (rǒngyǔ) — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Danish: pleonasme — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Danish: dobbeltkonfekt — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Dutch: pleonasme — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Esperanto: pleonasmo — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Finnish: pleonasmi — phrase involving pleonasm
  • French: pléonasme — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Greek: πλεονασμός (pleonasmós) — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Hungarian: pleonazmus — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Hungarian: szószaporítás — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Hungarian: szinonimahalmozás — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Polish: pleonazm — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Romanian: pleonasm — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Swedish: pleonasm — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Turkish: pleonazm — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Turkish: doldurma — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Turkish: haşiv — phrase involving pleonasm
  • Ukrainian: плеона́зм (pleonázm) — phrase involving pleonasm