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replicate

UK/ˈɹɛplɪkeɪt/<a:RP><q:verb>US/ˈɹɛplɪkeɪt/<a:RP><q:verb>
verbB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,466 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: replicated, replicating, replicates

To replicate is to make an exact copy, or to repeat a study. Replicate the results, hard to replicate, replicate the experiment.

A finding becomes knowledge only when somebody else can replicate it, which is why the discovery that a great many published results will not replicate is among the most important things science has learned about itself in fifty years.

Definitions of replicate

  1. 1verbreplicateTo make an exact copy, or to repeat a study.B2+

    “The artist replicated the old painting so perfectly that even experts were fooled.”

replicate is a copying.

Where it comes from

Latin replicare means to fold back — re, back, plus plicare, to fold. Reply is a doublet.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *pleḱ-

  2. Latin

    replicātus

  3. English, today

    replicate

Built from

  • replicāre · Latin — to fold or bend back; reply
  • re · Latin — back
  • plicāre · Latin — to fold

From Latin replicātus, past participle of replicāre (“to fold or bend back; reply”), from re (“back”) + plicāre (“to fold”); see ply. Doublet of reply and replica.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

replicate in the wild

  • Memes that replicate most effectively enjoy more success, and some may replicate effectively even when they prove to be detrimental to the welfare of their hosts.

    Meme

  • Harmful prion proteins can replicate by converting normal proteins into rogue forms.

    Self-replication

  • Any self-replicating mechanism which does not make a perfect copy (mutation) will experience genetic variation and will create variants of itself.

    Self-replication

  • Utility fog (also referred to as foglets) is a hypothetical collection of tiny nanobots that can replicate a physical structure.

    Utility fog

  • The daughter cells can continue to replicate with the prophage present or the prophage can exit the bacterial chromosome to initiate the lytic cycle.

    Lysogenic cycle

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the plicāre family

displaydeploy

replicate — used about once every 4,601 pages · #9,466 · point at the bar for the others

  • replication