recapitulatio

Forms

recapitulātiō f (genitive recapitulātiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is a noun of action from Latin recapitulō (“to sum up, go over the main points again”).^[1][2][3] The verb is formed from re- (“again”) and capitulum (“heading, chapter”), so that it means literally “to restate by heads”.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it first in the Latin translation of Irenaeus, who uses it thirteen times, for instance of Moses summing up the whole Law in Deuteronomy.^[1]

Semantic evolution

In rhetoric it named the summing-up of points in the closing part of a speech: Fortunatianus counts it among the three parts of the epilogue.^[1] Lewis and Short call it a late word for repetitio and collectio.^[2] The TLL notes that it never occurs in verse and hardly ever in the plural.^[1] Medieval Latin kept the sense of a summary and added that of recurrence.^[4] English recapitulation comes from it, partly through Old French.^[3]

Timeline

• 413–426 AD – Augustine uses it in the City of God.^[2]
• late 14th century – English borrows it, partly through Old French, as recapitulation.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A summing up, recapitulation.^[2][1][5][4]
2. (rhetoric) The summary of the points made, in the closing part of a speech.^[1]
3. (Medieval Latin) Recurrence.^[4]

Related words

• capitulum
• English recapitulation

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
2. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
5. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson