Other forms: recaps, recapping, recapped
To recap is to go over the main points again. Let me recap, a quick recap, to recap briefly.
It belongs to meetings, broadcasts and lessons, and it always signals that what follows is short — a recap that takes as long as the original is a repeat. Let me recap is the standard way of retaking control of a wandering discussion. Note that recap is short for recapitulate, from the Latin for heads or chapters, so recapping is going back over the headings.
1verbrecapTo go over the main points again.
“At the start of each episode, the narrator recaps what happened the week before.”
2nounsummarySuch a summary.
“Here's a quick recap of what we discussed last week.”
recap is a summary.
Recap is a clipping of recapitulate, from Latin capitulum, a little head or chapter, from caput, a head. Chapter and capital come from the same head.
Proto-Indo-European
*kap-
Middle English
cappe
English
cap
English, today
recap
From re + cap. cap comes from Middle English cappe. Inherited from Middle English cappe, from Old English cæppe, from Proto-West Germanic kappā (“covering, hood, mantle”), from Latin cappa, itself from Latin caput. a doublet of cape and chape and cope.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA