duplicative

[ doo-pli-key-tiv, dyoo- ]

adjective

1. involving duplication, especially unnecessary repetition of effort or resources:

   The report will highlight examples of wasteful or duplicative spending.

   The new “No-Hassle” rule eliminates duplicative luggage screening requirements for passengers originating from certain airports.

2. done the same way more than once; effectively identical:

   A new law allows state agencies to ignore records requests they deem to be duplicative or substantially similar to previous requests.

Other Words From

• non·du·pli·ca·tive adjective
• un·du·pli·ca·tive adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of duplicative¹

First recorded in 1820–30; duplicat(e) ( def ) + -ive ( def )

Example Sentences

Claims have remained above the pre-pandemic record of 695,000, from 1982, for 35 weeks, although questions about backlogs, fraud and duplicate claims have complicated the data.

From Washington Post

“Searching for, collecting and duplicating public record text messages, if any, would not benefit the public enough, if at all, to justify the diversion of state resources to provide the records,” wrote Birnbaum, the chief assistant attorney general.

From ProPublica

You need to be careful not to duplicate other key combinations from Windows, or the apps you use, as you won’t get a warning if there’s a duplicate—it’ll just do what it was originally assigned to do.

From Popular-Science

Instead, consider what’s possible in virtual settings that could never be duplicated in person.

From Digiday

At issue, she said later in an interview, was a technical discrepancy that created duplicate results when absentee ballots were scanned.

From Washington Post

Americans have cried for decades that our federal government is bloated, that there are too many duplicative and unnecessary laws.

From The Daily Beast

Many of these proposals are often duplicative and tied to a news event.

From The Daily Beast

But it can hardly be said that the duplicative process is of a distinctively grammatical significance in English.

From Project Gutenberg

Many of these forms are needed for vital government functions, but others are duplicative, overly complex or obsolete.

From Project Gutenberg