Dictionary

battology en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /baˈtɒl.ə.dʒi/ (UK)
• /bæˈtɑː.lə.d͡ʒi/ (US)
• (US) audio

Etymology

From Ancient Greek βαττολογία (battología, “stammering speech”).

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) Continual unnecessary reiteration of the same words, phrases, or ideas.
   • “Battology” means pointlessly repeating the same thing over and over again. “Battology” means pointlessly repeating the same thing over and over again. 2004, “Bats”, in QI, season B, episode 9, Stephen Fry (actor):
   • Logomachy, battology, jingling of words, are all these fine speeches! 1856, Henry Sutherland Edwards, Louis de Lom̂aenie, de Louis Léonard Loménie, Beaumarchais and His Times: Sketches of French Society in the Eighteenth Century, page 278:
   • For Watt's sense of chronology was strong, in a way, and his dislike of battology was very strong. 1959, Samuel Beckett, Watt, page 165:
   • This sonorous balance of phrase and epithet cannot always escape what Milton himself calls "the heathenish battology of multiplying words." 1900, Walter Alexander Raleigh, Milton, page 73:
   • Thus he objected to the battology of the Nicene Creed, 'God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,' because, he said, it 'adds neither to the emphasis nor the expressiveness of the document.' 2004, Paul Helm, John Calvin's Ideas, page 43:

Forms

Relateds

battologism · battologize · battological · battologise · battologist

Translations (1)

fr battologie (Translations)