recitation

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French recitation and directly borrowed from Latin recitātiō (“a reading aloud”),^[2][3][4][5] from recitō (“to read aloud”),^[2][3][6] from re- (“back, again”) and citō (“to summon”).^[3] The French word is recorded from 1366, for a recital or account.^[2] Etymonline calls it Old French and dates it to the 14th century.^[3] Anglo-Norman has it earlier as a legal term, for the main part of a writ stating the wrong, dated 1344 by the Anglo-Norman Dictionary and the early 14th century by the OED.^[7][2] In Latin it was a public reading aloud, as of judicial decrees or literary works,^[3] and it also meant an account or narration in a British source of about 1230.^[2] The noun is closely related to recite and cite.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action of relating or describing something; an account: 1484, in Caxton's translation of Aesop.^[2] Etymonline gives the late 15th century,^[3] Dictionary.com 1475–85,^[6] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged the 15th century.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word first meant telling or listing something, as French did: an account of events rather than a performance.^[2][3] Reading aloud or repeating from memory is recorded from 1618,^[2] although French had "reciting from memory" from 1530.^[2] Johnson (1755) gives "repetition; rehearsal".^[8] In American schools from 1770, a recitation was a pupil's oral repetition of a prepared lesson, and then an oral test used as a regular way of teaching, or a class given over to it; the OED now calls this chiefly historical.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1484 – the relating or describing of something; an account; formerly also enumeration.^[2]
• 1614 – an instance of relating something; a narrative.^[2]
• 1618 – an act of reading aloud or repeating from memory before an audience, the action in general following in 1623.^[2] Etymonline dates the sense to the 1620s.^[3]
• 1770 – in American education, oral repetition of a prepared lesson; an oral test on it.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or an instance of reading aloud or repeating from memory, especially before an audience: a recitation of the Psalms at dusk.^[9][4][2]
2. Something recited.^[9]
3. A detailed account or enumeration of something.^[4][2]
4. (US) In education, an oral test on prepared material, or a class given over to it.^[2][3]

Related words

• recite
• recital
• recitative
• cite
• citation

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins