Skip to main content

Verbiage vs Redundancy vs Tautology vs Pleonasm vs Circumlocution vs Periphrasis

Verbiage, redundancytautologypleonasmcircumlocutionperiphrasis are comparable when they denote a fault of style or a form or mode of expression involving the use of too many words.

Verbiage may imply delight in words for their own sake (as for their sound, their color, or their suggestions) and overindulgence in their use for these reasons; the term, however, often suggests a pointless or habitual wordiness that tends to make what is written dull, meaningless, obscure, or unduly heavy reading.

Redundancy does not in general carry the implications of expansiveness, floridity, or heaviness so often apparent in verbiage ; but the term sometimes implies the use of more words than are required by idiom or syntax and so suggests a fault of style.

Tautology is needless or useless repetition of the same idea in different words.

Pleonasm implies the use of syntactically unnecessary words as in “the man he said.” Sometimes pleonastic expressions are acceptable means of emphasis and are thought of as figures of speech.

Circumlocution and periphrasis denote a roundabout or indirect way of saying a thing.