noun
- the use of more words than necessary to express an idea; redundant expressions
Usage: rhetoric; grammar
Examples
- The phrase ‘free gift’ is a common pleonasm since gifts are inherently free.
- Writers should avoid pleonasms like ‘advance planning’ to make their prose clearer.
- The teacher pointed out several pleonasms in the student’s essay.
- ‘PIN number’ is a pleonasm because PIN already means personal identification number.
- Legal documents often contain pleonasms that make them unnecessarily wordy.
- The editor removed multiple pleonasms to tighten the manuscript.