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
- recapitulative adjective
Etymology
Origin of recapitulate
First recorded in 1560–70; from Late Latin recapitulātus (past participle of recapitulāre ), equivalent to re- re- + capitulātus; capitulate
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
Stopping these toxins could save countless lives and limbs, but laboratory research usually relies on cell-based research, which doesn’t accurately recapitulate what happens in a living animal.
From Science Magazine • Jun. 5, 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.
