battology

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

• (UK) IPA^(key): /baˈtɒl.ə.dʒi/
• (US) IPA^(key): /bæˈtɑː.lə.d͡ʒi/

• Audio (US)

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battology (countable and uncountable, plural battologies)

1. Continual unnecessary reiteration of the same words, phrases, or ideas.
   • 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:

     Logomachy, battology, jingling of words, are all these fine speeches!

   • 1900, Walter Alexander Raleigh, Milton, page 73:

     This sonorous balance of phrase and epithet cannot always escape what Milton himself calls "the heathenish battology of multiplying words."

   • 1959, Samuel Beckett, Watt, page 165:

     For Watt's sense of chronology was strong, in a way, and his dislike of battology was very strong.

   • 2004, Paul Helm, John Calvin's Ideas, page 43:

     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, “Bats”, in QI, season B, episode 9, Stephen Fry (actor):

     “Battology” means pointlessly repeating the same thing over and over again. “Battology” means pointlessly repeating the same thing over and over again.