recapitulate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to review by a brief summary, as at the end of a speech or discussion; summarize.
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Biology. (of an organism) to repeat (ancestral evolutionary stages) in its development.
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Music. to restate (the exposition) in a sonata-form movement.
verb (used without object)
verb
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to restate the main points of (an argument, speech, etc); summarize
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(tr) (of an animal) to repeat (stages of its evolutionary development) during the embryonic stages of its life
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to repeat at some point during a piece of music (material used earlier in the same work)
Related Words
See repeat.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of recapitulate
First recorded in 1560–70; from Late Latin recapitulātus (past participle of recapitulāre ), equivalent to re- re- + capitulātus; see capitulate
Explanation
To recapitulate means to go back and summarize. At the end of an oral report, you might say, "So, to recapitulate, I've made three points," and then you name them. Recapitulate is a long, scary-looking word that actually means something simple and easy. It comes from the Latin re- "again" and capitulum "chapter," which comes from the word caput "head." Think of recapitulating––or recapping, for short––as putting nice little caps on all the bottles you've opened up––tightening everything up.
Vocabulary lists containing recapitulate
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Vocabulary to Describe Literary Devices
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“It would be tedious as well as unwelcome,” Lord Halifax said on another occasion, “to recapitulate all our wrong steps.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 8, 2026
The platform can determine which models most closely recapitulate the functional changes seen in AD and identify the most relevant pathways for drug discovery.
From Science Daily • Nov. 27, 2024
So we and many others have worked for decades to make a medicine that could recapitulate that naturally-occurring phenomenon.
From Seattle Times • Apr. 15, 2024
What is important is that gastruloids recapitulate some features of early development even without the external cues from the placenta or yolk sac that typically direct the organization of an early embryo.
From Scientific American • Nov. 9, 2023
Yet, uncannily, the trajectory of his psyche had begun to recapitulate Jagu’s.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
