# ad nauseam

idiom · CEFR C1

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/ad-nauseam
Updated: 2026-08-03

## Meaning

Repeated so often that everyone is sick of it.

## Examples

- We have discussed this ad nauseam.
- The policy had been explained ad nauseam in emails nobody had opened.
- The radio station played that summer hit ad nauseam until listeners started calling in to complain about the constant repetition.
- The point was repeated ad nauseam in the belief that repetition was persuasion, when in practice each restatement bought a little less attention than the one before it.

## Origin

Ad nauseam means, quite literally, to the point of sickness. Nausea is a Latin word taken straight from Greek, where it started out as seasickness — nausia, from naus, a ship — before it broadened to cover queasiness of any kind. Roman rhetorical training was concerned with how much repetition an argument could stand before the audience turned on the speaker, and Latin supplied the phrase for the point past which it could not. English adopted it in the seventeenth century and has used it as a complaint ever since. To argue a point ad nauseam is not to argue it thoroughly; it is to argue it until the room stops listening.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.