All rules

Term defined twice

duplicate-definitionon by defaultJapanese / English

The same term defined in two places in one document

Example

Flagged
# Terms of use ## 1. Definitions "Service" means the booking system we provide. ## 2. Use "Service" means the booking website we run. Users may use the Service free of charge.
What chaff prints
9:1 "Service" is also defined on line 5
Fixed
# Terms of use ## 1. Definitions "Service" means the booking website we run. ## 2. Use Users may use the Service free of charge.
What chaff prints
no finding

How to fix

Keep one definition and refer to it from the other place. If the meaning changes on purpose, use a different term.

Why it matters

A term defined in two places makes the reader check whether the two definitions agree. In long contracts a definition added later often drifts from the first. Whether they conflict is not something a machine can decide, so chaff only points at the second one. A heading that names the term is not counted as a definition.

What it does not flag

Whether the two definitions conflict is not decided; only the second is pointed at. A heading that names the term is not a definition. In English, a phrase quoted alone in brackets with a word a name would capitalise left in lower case ("The key point is") quotes an example, and is not a definition. An attached instrument (from a title line such as "Exhibit A to Merger Agreement" between blank lines, or a heading such as "## **SCHEDULE B**") is a separate document: its definitions are compared only with each other, not with those of the body. A term defined again in brackets after the same capitalised name (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ("FinCEN") in both the subject line and the body, or in the quoted title of another letter) restates one definition, and is not reported.

Turning it off or relaxing it

Silence this one spot (in the document)
<!-- stet: duplicate-definition — reason -->
Relax it for the team (the reason is kept as a comment in chaff.yaml)
npx chaffjs relax duplicate-definition --why "reason"
Turn it off for the team (chaff.yaml)
rules: duplicate-definition: off
Technical details
Layer
L3
Status
stable
Severity
warning
Languages
Japanese and English
Suited to
business, technical, blog, legal, docs, academic, literature, speech
Reads from the document
structure

Levels

Set a level for this rule under rules in chaff.yaml. With nothing set, it runs at the level its genre gives it (see By genre below).

stricterror
normalwarning
relaxedinfo

This rule has no limit to count to. A level sets how a finding is marked: relaxed keeps the finding and marks it a step lower.

By genre

Runs by default in
technical/spec, technical/readme, blog/tech, blog/essay, blog/owned-media, business/proposal, business/report, business/email, business/press-release, business/meeting-notes, legal/contract, legal/statute, legal/judgment, legal/patent, docs/manual, docs/faq, docs/glossary, academic/paper, speech/address, speech/transcript
Turned off by the genre in
literature/fiction, literature/essay, literature/poetry, literature/play

Genres

Message

"{term}" is also defined on line {first}

This page is built from the rule's definition file:packages/chaff/rules/duplicate-definition.yaml