recapitulation

American  

[ree-kuh-pich-uh-ley-shuhn] / ˌri kəˌpɪtʃ əˈleɪ ʃən /

noun

1. the act of recapitulating or the state of being recapitulated.

2. a brief review or summary, as of a speech.

3. Biology. the theory that the stages an organism passes through during its embryonic development repeat the evolutionary stages of structural change in its ancestral lineage.

4. Music. the modified restatement of the exposition following the development section in a sonata-form movement.

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recapitulation British  

/ ˌriːkəˌpɪtjʊˈleɪʃən /

noun

1. the act of recapitulating, esp summing up, as at the end of a speech

2. Also called: palingenesis.  biology the apparent repetition in the embryonic development of an animal of the changes that occurred during its evolutionary history Compare caenogenesis

3. music the repeating of earlier themes, esp when forming the final section of a movement in sonata form

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Other Word Forms

• recapitulative adjective
• recapitulatory adjective

Etymology

Origin of recapitulation

1350–1400; Middle English recapitulacioun < Late Latin recapitulātiōn- (stem of recapitulātiō ), equivalent to recapitulāt ( us ) ( recapitulate ) + -iōn- -ion

Example Sentences

Will then lurches into a tut-tutting recapitulation of the French army chief of staff’s public statement that his nation’s people must accept the risk of losing their children to protect France from an unnamed aggressor.

From Salon • Dec. 20, 2025

And the judge said the appeal bid did not add to the claim but was a "recapitulation of the case" that had previously been brought.

From BBC • Apr. 15, 2024

Schaffer: Once we knew we were going to do this recapitulation of the “Seinfeld” finale, the question was how far do we take it?

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 8, 2024

Sometimes the development section is only a few notes, but then there’s a clear indication of the recapitulation in each movement.

From New York Times • Apr. 15, 2022

In biology there is a principle of powerful if imperfect applicability called recapitulation: in our individual embryonic development we retrace the evolutionary history of the species.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan