Other forms: repeated, repeating, repeats
To repeat is to say or do the same thing again. Repeat the question, repeat a year, could you repeat that?
The noun is common in broadcasting: a repeat is a programme shown again, and British television schedules are full of them. Note repeat back, which means to say something aloud to confirm you heard it, and repeat oneself, which means to say the same thing more than once and is nearly always a complaint. The adjective repeated means happening several times — repeated attempts — and repetitive means boringly so, which is a different judgement.
1verbrepeatTo say or do something again.
“Could you repeat that more slowly?”
synonyms: say again, reiterate
2nounprogrammeA programme broadcast again.
“There is nothing on but repeats.”
3verbhappenTo happen again.
“The same pattern repeats every autumn.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
repeat is a way of doing again.
Latin repetere is re-, again, plus petere, to seek or make for — the same verb behind petition, appetite and compete. To repeat is to go after something a second time.
Proto-Indo-European
*peth₂-
Latin
repetō
Old French
repeter
Middle English
repeten
English, today
repeat
Built from
From Middle English repeten, from Old French repeter, from Latin repetō, from the prefix re- (“again”) + petō (“to attack, beseech”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA