tautonym

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
13
Words With Friends
15
Letters
8

Definition of tautonym

3 senses · 1 part of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. A binomial name consisting of the same word twice, such as Bison bison.
    “And that would mean a species named Leucanthemum leucanthemum, with the genus and species epithet the same (a tautonym), which is a total no-no in botany.”
See all 3 definitions

noun

  1. A binomial name consisting of the same word twice, such as Bison bison.
    “And that would mean a species named Leucanthemum leucanthemum, with the genus and species epithet the same (a tautonym), which is a total no-no in botany.”
  2. A word or term made from two identical parts or syllables, such as bonbon or dada.
    “The chapter on reduplication - "flip-flopping higgledy- piggledy through the riffraff" - differentiates rhyming compounds like bigwig, hotshot, ragtag, sci-fi from repetitions called tautonyms, such as bye-bye, so-so, rah-rah, as well as from ricochet words in which the repeated element is modified: chit-chat, roly-poly, shilly-shally.”
  3. An absolute synonym.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

From taut- + -onym or alternatively tauto- + -nym.

Hooks

2 extensions · 2 back

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