Etymologically
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repetitive

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Pronunciation

  • /ɹɪˈpɛtɪtɪv/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English repetition + -ive, after pairs such as action and active,[2][3] or, as the OED, Etymonline and Klein put it, from Latin repetīt-, the past participle stem of repetō (“to do or say again”), with the same suffix.[4][5][6][7] The OED compares Medieval Latin repetitivus (“repeating, recurrent”), found in a 13th-century British source, and the earlier English adjectives repetitious and repeating.[4] The verb is the source of repeat.[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Characterized by repetition: 1756, in E. Perronet's Mitre, according to the OED's revision of 2009.[4][2] Older dictionaries dated the word later: 1805 in Etymonline,[5] 1839 in the OED's second edition and Merriam-Webster,[8][9] and the 1830s in Dictionary.com.[7]

Semantic evolution

The word long competed with repetitious (1670s), repetitional and repetitionary (both 1720); Etymonline quotes Fowler (1926), who found that few writers dared to use any of them, but that repetitious was common in American use and repetitive perhaps the least avoided in England.[5] In grammar, from 1810, it was used as a noun for a compound formed by repeating a word.[4] The Shorter Oxford records the phrase repetitive strain injury, damage to muscles from the same movements made again and again, as at a keyboard.[3]

Timeline

  • 1756 – characterized by repetition; tedious.[4]
  • 1805 – first record according to Etymonline.[5]
  • 1810 – grammar, a repetition compound.[4]
  • 1839 – first record in the OED's second edition and Merriam-Webster.[8][9]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Repeating the same thing too often, so as to be dull or tedious; repetitious: a repetitive job on an assembly line.[10][2][4]
  2. Happening or done again and again: repetitive movements of the wrist.[2][3]

Noun

  1. (grammar) A compound formed by repeating a word.[4][8]

Word family

  • repetitively
  • repetitiveness
  • unrepetitive
  • nonrepetitive

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  8. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins