recapitulate
Americanverb (used with object)
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recapitulates,
present (3rd person singular)
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recapitulated,
past participle, past
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recapitulating
present participle
-
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)
-
recapitulates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
recapitulated,
past participle, past
-
recapitulating
present participle
verb
-
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)
Synonym Usage
See repeat.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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recapitulatesimple
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recapitulatessimple
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have recapitulatedperfect
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has recapitulatedperfect
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am recapitulatingprogressive
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are recapitulatingprogressive
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is recapitulatingprogressive
-
have been recapitulatingperfect progressive
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has been recapitulatingperfect progressive
Past
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recapitulatedsimple
-
had recapitulatedperfect
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was recapitulatingprogressive
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were recapitulatingprogressive
-
had been recapitulatingperfect progressive
Future
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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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.
See Examples For:
Rather than recapitulate historical chronicles, Mr. Enrigue imagines the event from the Aztec point of view, creating an account that is gory, hallucinatory and thrilling in its strangeness.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 5, 2026
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
But it remains unclear to what extent rodent models recapitulate abnormalities present in humans, given critical species differences in heart size, cardiac physiology, electrophysiology, and bioenergetics.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 8, 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
His book claimed that its menu of animal proteins and unprocessed vegetables recapitulates the diet of our Stone Age ancestors.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026
Goldberg also recapitulates the stories about Trump's fascination with Adolf Hitler as told to him and the other authors by John Kelly.
From Salon ● Oct. 23, 2024
This model recapitulates human heart development during the first trimester, including critical steps such as chamber formation, vascularization, cardiac tissue organization, and relevant cardiac cell types.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 8, 2024
Toni Morrison’s “A Mercy,” in less than 200 pages, effectively recapitulates America’s tortuous racial history.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2023
The peculiar feature of his peep-show construction, that the viewer is looking at himself as well as at the painting, simply recapitulates this earlier tension.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
The spontaneous development of liver cancer from a fatty liver can therefore only be recapitulated and investigated if all these factors interact.
From Science Daily ● May 7, 2024
The infamous climax of that story recapitulated the depraved ambitions of a would-be rubber baron who conscripts Indigenous villagers to drag a ship through a steep jungle denuded for that purpose.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 16, 2022
In his ruling on Andrew’s motion to dismiss the case, the judge recapitulated the allegations in Ms. Giuffre’s lawsuit.
From New York Times ● Jan. 13, 2022
“It seemed like the hair, in a way, recapitulated what we know happens at the cellular level,” Picard says.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 22, 2021
She recapitulated the motives which no doubt explained Robert’s reserve.
From "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin
Her attorney wrote back Wednesday, recapitulating her defense that this was an “inadvertent oversight,” since Ms. Cook sought the mortgage for a “Vacation Home,” and the lender knew where she actually lived.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
"Our concept is recapitulating development: FOXF1 is expressed during development and in healthy tissue, but it decreases with age," Purmessur Walter said.
From Science Daily ● May 16, 2024
There is always a narrative risk when recapitulating events in historical fiction — predetermination can deaden the pulse.
From New York Times ● Jan. 3, 2023
They recast events the reader already knows something about, lending the novel a sense of perpetual circling and recapitulating.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2022
Hume, in distinguishing relations of ideas from matters of fact, is recapitulating the fundamental intellectual conflict which gave rise to the Scientific Revolution.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
