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What is a word called that consists of a repetition of one word?

I came across the word polypoly in one of the other question asked on the site, and it got me thinking whether there are other English words that are made up of a word or part of a word repeated in the same way that polypoly is made up of poly + poly. Can you please provide examples also?

NVZ
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Michael Lai
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    The word was actually polyopoly, if I remember correctly, not polypoly. – Pockets May 21 '14 at 22:53
  • I think both are acceptable spellings, according to the post anyway: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/171868/what-is-the-opposite-of-a-monopoly/171961#171961 – Michael Lai May 21 '14 at 23:41
  • This question is not too broad. He said "some" examples, we cannot list all of them obviously. Also, we know what it is called now so more examples can be searched. There are similar list-request questions in the past that is open also. – ermanen May 22 '14 at 00:14
  • @Michael Lai: You may modify the question title and body to ask what this formation is called instead of asking for examples only. And you can ask for some examples in the question body. – ermanen May 22 '14 at 00:27
  • They'll be matched by the regexp ^(.*)-?\1$ – Nate Eldredge May 22 '14 at 01:34

3 Answers3

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This is called reduplication. If you repeat the whole word (or lexeme), it is called full reduplication. There is usually a hyphen in between. (For example: go-go)

There is a list of English reduplications here:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_reduplications

Full reduplication examples:

  • boo-boo
  • bye-bye
  • cancan
  • chop-chop
  • gee-gee
  • jaw-jaw
  • licky-licky
  • moo-moo
  • murmur
  • nulla-nulla
  • pee-pee
  • pompom
  • poo-poo
  • pooh-pooh
  • rah-rah
  • tartar
  • dodo
  • lulu
  • tutu
  • juju
  • papa
  • couscous
  • tete
  • coco
  • dik-dik
  • beriberi
ermanen
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    ... and a look-alike: hotshots – Edwin Ashworth May 21 '14 at 23:14
  • @Edwin: Great example! Maybe we can call it pseudo-reduplication :) – ermanen May 21 '14 at 23:15
  • Tartar is another example of a word that looks superficially like reduplication (tar + tar). –  May 21 '14 at 23:28
  • @snailboat It might very well be in French (define: tartare), but in English the word has become tartare – Michael Lai May 21 '14 at 23:43
  • @MichaelLai Tartare is chopped up meat, but tartar is like tartar sauce. – WendiKidd May 22 '14 at 00:04
  • Many of these are not English at all, but loan words from other languages. cancan and tutu are French. Many others are from Pacific languages where reduplication is very common. – teylyn May 22 '14 at 01:03
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    @teylyn: Loan words are English also. – ermanen May 22 '14 at 01:05
  • Rhetorical question: why is it re duplication? Repeating or duplication, I understand. But reduplication is using too many superfluous unnecessary redundant syllables. Unless the word has four occurrences of the same component word. Illogical ... natural language ... sigh ... mutter ... (wanders off). –  May 22 '14 at 01:43
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    It may be worth noting that testes is not reduplicated, but rather the plural form of testis. – Anonym May 22 '14 at 01:59
  • @Anonym: I thought it would count. I will delete then to eliminate confusion. – ermanen May 22 '14 at 02:05
  • @Anonym: Also you gave me food for thought. Are you sure we cannot call testes reduplication? Because think this way, when you change the word from singular to plural you are reduplicating it. Though I might ask this as a question also. – ermanen May 22 '14 at 02:19
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    @ermanen Note that testis, testes follows a specific Latin declension in which singular -is is replaced with plural -es. Some other nouns belonging to the same declension: axis, axes; thesis, theses; oasis, oases. So testes does appear to have been reduplicated, but the process by which it has been created is not reduplication. – Anonym May 22 '14 at 02:42
  • @Anonym: You are right. But I still feel like we can call it both a plural and a reduplication :) Do you think this is worth to ask as a question? (with some additional details of course) – ermanen May 22 '14 at 02:52
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    @ermanen Perhaps. If it were asked as a broader question about what exactly constitutes reduplication, then I think that it might be interesting. – Anonym May 22 '14 at 02:56
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To supplement ermanen's list, I note these from Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary (2003):

ack-ack (n.)

agar-agar (n.)

atlatl (n.)

aye-aye (n.)

Berber (n.)

bonbon (n.)

buddy-buddy (adj.)

bulbul (n.)

caracara (n.)

cha-cha (n.)

chowchow (n.—the relish not the dog, which is spelled chow chow)

dumdum (n.—the bullet)

dum-dum (n.—the nitwit)

gaga (adj.)

go-go (adj.)

goody-goody (adj.)

goo-goo (adj. & n.)

gris-gris (n.)

ha-ha (interj.)

ha-ha (n.—a sunk fence)

lavalava (n.—has nothing to do with volcanic lava)

mau-mau (v.)

meme (n.)

motmot (n.)

mumu (n., from MW's Unabridged dictionary)

no-no (n.)

pawpaw (n.)

so-so (adj. & adv.)

tsetse (n.)

tut-tut (interj. & v.)

For some reason, Merriam-Webster's doesn't acknowledge the reality of hubba-hubba. But I'm sure that there are others in the dictionary that I've missed...

Community
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Sven Yargs
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Such a word is a tautonym. See sense 2 here: "(linguistics) A word or term made from two identical parts or syllables, such as bonbon or dada."

Rosie F
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