redundancy

noun

re·​dun·​dan·​cy ri-ˈdən-dən(t)-sē 

plural redundancies

1

a

: the quality or state of being redundant : superfluity

b

: the use of redundant components

also : such components

c

chiefly British : dismissal from a job especially by layoff

2

: profusion, abundance

3

a

: superfluous repetition : prolixity

b

: an act or instance of needless repetition

4

: the part of a message that can be eliminated without loss of essential information

Did you know?

Redundancy, closely related to redound, has stayed close to the original meaning of "overflow" or "more than necessary". Avoiding redundancy is one of the prime rules of good writing. ""In the modern world of today" contains a redundancy; so does "He died of fatal wounds" and "For the mutual benefit of both parties". But redundancy doesn't just occur in language. "Data redundancy" means keeping the same computer data in more than one place as a safety measure, and a backup system in an airplane may provide redundancy, again for the sake of safety.

Synonyms of redundancy

• repetition
• repetitiveness
• verbosity
• wordiness
• prolixity
• diffusion
• diffuseness
• wordage
• logorrhea
• circumlocution

Examples of redundancy in a Sentence

Avoid redundancy in your writing.

Try to avoid using redundancies in your writing.

The design incorporates several redundancies.

a system with a high level of redundancy

The restructuring is expected to result in the redundancy of several hundred workers.

The workers are now facing redundancy.

Recent Examples on the Web

This redundancy enables each spacecraft to be built more affordably than in the past, because the copies allow for more acceptance of risk. —Christopher Carr, The Conversation, 13 Nov. 2025

Snyder said the airlines will cut regional flights because that’s where there’s the most redundancy, often with flights every hour. —Claire Wang, Oc Register, 6 Nov. 2025

For now, Russia retains enough redundancy and repair capacity to keep the system afloat. —Tatiana Mitrova, Foreign Affairs, 5 Nov. 2025

Amazon is reportedly planning to lay a new subsea fiber optic cable across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean in a bid to add more capacity and redundancy to its network. —Andrew Nusca, Fortune, 5 Nov. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1601, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Kids Definition

redundancy

noun

re·​dun·​dan·​cy ri-ˈdən-dən-sē 

plural redundancies

1

: the quality or state of being redundant

2

a

: the use of unnecessary words

b

: an act or instance of needless repetition