Redundancy in the definition of monotonically increasing functions

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This popular Algorithms book tells us the following definition of monotonically increasing functions:

A function $f(n)$ is monotonically increasing if $m \le n$ implies $f(m) \le f(n)$.

I can see why we need $m < n \implies f(m) \le f(n)$ but I am having a hard time understanding why we need to write $m \le n$ instead of just $m < n$. Isn't it kind of redundant because $m = n \implies f(m) = f(n)$ is already true because that's what makes $f(n)$ a "function" in the first place?

So re-writing the above definition:

A function $f(n)$ is monotonically increasing if $m < n$ implies $f(m) \le f(n)$.

Is this not sufficient? Or am I missing something?