ripetere

Forms

ripetere (first-person singular present ripèto, first-person singular past historic ripetéi, past participle ripetùto, auxiliary avére)^[1] An older form is Old Italian repetere.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin repetere (“to seek again; to claim back; to repeat”), from petō (“to make for; to ask”) with the prefix re- (“again”).^[5][6][7][2] DELI notes that the Latin verb had two rather different senses, “to ask again” and “to claim what is owed”, and that both passed into Italian, as did the double sense of its derivatives repetītiō and repetītor.^[5] Devoto gives the original meaning as “to head again towards someone”.^[2][8] De Vaan traces petō to Proto-Indo-European *pet- (“to fly”), through a shift from “fly towards” to “try to reach”.^[9][1]

Körting lists it among the words that every Romance language has only in learned form, like French répéter and Spanish repetir.^[10][6] Meyer-Lübke records popular southern outcomes of the Latin verb in the sense of mourning: Abruzzese arpete (“to lament the dead”), Sicilian repitu (“weeping”), and southern names for hired mourners.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is Dante (1313–1319), for “to say again, to say over”.^[5][7] Ludovico Ariosto (1520) uses it in the legal sense “to claim back”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

“To do again, perform again” is recorded in Francesco Guicciardini before 1540.^[5] Boccaccio already used it for going over past events in the mind, a sense now literary.^[7][12] In school language ripetere la lezione is to go over a lesson, and ripetere l'anno to repeat a school year after failing; the ripetente, a pupil who repeats a year, is recorded in 1902.^[5][7][12]

The reflexive ripetersi, to say the same things over and over, appears in Tommaseo (1872), who also records it for “to happen again” but called that use not genuinely Italian.^[5] The joking phrase Paganini non ripete refuses a repeat, after the violinist who gave no encores.^[2][12][3] In law ripetere still means to claim back an undue payment.^[12][3]

Timeline

• Before 1311 – Repetitore “private tutor” appears in Giordano da Pisa.^[5]
• 1313–1319 – Dante uses ripetere “to say again”.^[5]
• 1520 – Ludovico Ariosto uses the legal sense “to claim back”.^[5]
• Before 1540 – Francesco Guicciardini uses it for “to do again”.^[5]
• 1872 – Tommaseo records ripetersi for repeating oneself.^[5]
• 1902 – Ripetente, a pupil repeating a year, is recorded.^[5]
• 1974 – Ripetitivo is recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To say again words already said, by oneself or by others; to repeat: Puoi ripetere il numero di telefono?^[7][2][12]
2. (transitive) To pass on, report what one has heard: Non ripetere a nessuno quello che ti ho raccontato.^[7]
3. (transitive) To recite what one has learnt: ripetere la lezione.^[7][12]
4. (transitive) To do or perform again: Il medico ha voluto ripetere le analisi.^[7][2][3]
5. (transitive) To achieve again: La squadra spera di ripetere l'impresa..^[7][2][12]
6. (education) To repeat a school year after failing: Ha dovuto ripetere la terza media.^[7][3][12]
7. (law) To claim something back, especially an undue payment.^[12][3]
8. (literary) To go over in the memory.^[7][12][3]
9. (pronominal, ripetersi) To say or do the same things over and over; to happen again.^[5][2]

Word family

• ripetente
• ripetibile
• irripetibile
• ripetutamente
• ripetitivo
• ripetenza

Related words

• ripetizione
• ripetitore
• petizione
• Latin repeto
• French répéter

Usage notes

Paganini non ripete! is a joking refusal to say or do something a second time.^[2][12][3] Coazione a ripetere is the psychoanalytic “repetition compulsion”.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
4. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 16, 655
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 374
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli