recapitulate
/ɹiːkəˈpɪtʃʊleɪt/
"recapitulate" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“recapitulate” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To summarize or repeat in concise form.
Corpus desk
Index EN-recapitulate · recapitulate · English
recapitulate · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "R" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | recapitulate |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ɹiːkəˈpɪtʃʊleɪt/ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “recapitulate” in English
Rare enough to double-check
recapitulate is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed /ɹiːkəˈpɪtʃʊleɪt/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
recapitulate has no tracked misspelling variants, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Late Latin recapitulātus, past participle of recapitulāre (“to go over the main points of a thing again”), from re- (“again”) + capitulum (“head, main part, chapter”), from caput (“head”) + -ulum (diminutive suffix); see capitulate. By surface analysis… The correct English form is recapitulate, spelled R-E-C-A-P-I-T-U-L-A-T-E.
Definition
- 1To summarize or repeat in concise form.
- 2To reproduce or closely resemble (as in structure or function).
- 3To mirror or repeat in analogous form, especially in reference to an individual's development passing through stages corresponding to the species' stages of evolutionary development.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how recapitulate appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The entire symphony was recapitulated in the last four bars.
We still have five minutes left, so let's recapitulate the lecture.
Etymology
From Late Latin recapitulātus, past participle of recapitulāre (“to go over the main points of a thing again”), from re- (“again”) + capitulum (“head, main part, chapter”), from caput (“head”) + -ulum (diminutive suffix); see capitulate. By surface analysis, re- + capitulate.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.