Ad nauseam (pronounced
ad naw-zee-uhm ) is a Latin
adverb phrase
ad meaning
to and
nauseam the
accusative of
nausea or sickness. Often misspelled
ad nauseum.
Literally, the Latin phrase means `to a sickening degree' and means to go on endlessly in an annoying and tedious manner. The term is frequently used to describe something that happens again and again so that it is tedious or grating. For example, I wish he'd drop the subject; we have heard about the political agenda ad nauseam.
The term has been used in English since the early 1600s and today the phrase has been integrated into the fallacy of repetition argument argumentum ad nauseam with the contention that an idea is considered more likely to be true the more often it is stated.
Sources:
Bloomsbury Good Word Guide, Bloomsbury, 1997.
The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms Christine Ammer, 1997.