replication

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English replicacioun, also replicacion and repplicacion,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman replicacioun, Middle French replication and replicacion,^[4][3][5][6] and partly directly borrowed from Latin replicātiō (“a folding back; repetition; a legal reply”).^[4][2] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from 1289 as an answer to an opponent's argument.^[7] The Latin noun is formed from replicātus, the past participle of replicō (“to fold back; to repeat, reply”),^[3][5][8] which is made up of re- (“back, again”) and plicō (“to fold”),^[3][9] from Proto-Indo-European *plek- (“to plait”).^[3] The OED compares replicació, Spanish replicación, Italian replicazione and Portuguese replicação.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Repetition or recapitulation: before 1400, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius.^[4] Etymonline and the Middle English Dictionary put the sense "answer, verbal response" first, recorded in the late 14th century,^[3][2] and Chaucer used the word four times, for both reply and repetition.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word belonged mostly to argument and the law: a reply or rejoinder, and in pleading the claimant's answer to the defendant's plea, the third step in a common-law action, recorded from 1425.^[4][3][2] The general sense of a reply has become rare.^[4] Shakespeare used it in Julius Caesar for the echo of a sound,^[4][5] and Johnson (1755) gave "rebound; repercussion" as a sense no longer in use, beside "reply; answer".^[11] The sense of copying came from the Latin idea of repetition: a copy or reproduction is recorded from 1692,^[4] in the 1690s in Etymonline.^[3] The 20th century gave the word its main modern uses: the repetition of an experiment to confirm its results, from 1914,^[4] and in biology the process by which genetic material or an organism copies itself, from 1945 in the OED^[4] and 1948 in Etymonline.^[3] The verb replicate in the sense "to copy" is a back-formation from replication, recorded from 1882.^[3]

Timeline

• 1289 – Anglo-Norman replication, an answer to an opponent's argument.^[7]
• c. 1400 – repetition, recapitulation (obsolete by 1683), in Chaucer's Boethius.^[4]
• c. 1405 – the act of replying, in Chaucer's Knight's Tale.^[4]
• 1414 – a reply, a retort.^[4]
• 1425 – in law, a claimant's answer to a defendant's plea.^[4]
• before 1616 – an echo, in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.^[4]
• 1692 – a copy, a reproduction.^[4][3]
• 1914 – the repetition of an experiment to confirm its results.^[4]
• 1945 – in biology, the copying of genetic material or of an organism.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or process of copying or reproducing something; also, a copy: a careful replication of the medieval chapel.^[12][4][13]
2. (biology) The process by which DNA, a cell or a virus makes a copy of itself.^[12][13][4]
3. The repetition of an experiment or study in order to confirm its findings or reduce errors.^[12][13][4]
4. (law, historical) The plaintiff's reply to the defendant's answer or plea.^[13][5][4]
5. (now rare) A reply or answer, especially a reply to an answer; a rejoinder.^[13][5][4]
6. (now rare) An echo or reverberation.^[5][4]
7. (obsolete, c. 1400–1683) Repetition.^[4][14]

Word family

• nonreplication

Related words

• replicable
• replicate
• replica
• reply
• ply
• complicate
• duplicate

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press