tautonym
tautonym noun: a binomial name consisting of the same word twice, such as Bison bison.
Noun
tautonym (plural tautonyms)
- 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.2013 August 14, “Is oxeye daisy a Leucanthemum or a Chrysanthemum?”, in Botanical Accuracy
- 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...2006 March 11, William Safire, “Language: Nifty gifties: Books full of words - Opinion - International Herald Tribune”, in The New York Times
- An absolute synonym.
Synonyms of tautonym
Forms of tautonym
| plural | tautonyms |
|---|
Origin of tautonym
From taut- + -onym or alternatively tauto- + -nym.
Words formed from tautonym
Questions about tautonym
- What does tautonym mean?
- Tautonym means a binomial name consisting of the same word twice, such as Bison bison.
- What part of speech is tautonym?
- Tautonym is a noun.
- What is the plural of tautonym?
- The plural of tautonym is tautonyms.
Words near tautonym in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tautonym (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “tautonym.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tautonym. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.