Duplicate

How to spell duplicate

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce duplicate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does duplicate mean?

1. nounAn exact copy of something, identical to the original.
2. verbTo make or produce an exact copy of something.
3. adjectiveBeing an exact copy of, or matching, an original.

Duplicate in a sentence

• noun

  The office keeps a duplicate of every signed contract in the safe.

• verb

  Please duplicate this report so each manager has a copy.

• adjective

  He kept a duplicate set of keys at his neighbour's house.

• noun

  She found a duplicate of the lost key in the kitchen drawer.

• verb

  The machine can duplicate a hundred pages in under a minute.

• adjective

  The form must be submitted in duplicate for the records.

Where does duplicate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin duplicatus, the past participle of duplicare, meaning 'to double' or 'to fold in two'. That verb was built from duo, meaning 'two', and plicare, meaning 'to fold', so the literal idea was something folded over onto itself to make a matching pair. English adopted it in the fifteenth century, first as a verb for doubling or repeating and soon after as a noun for an exact second copy. The same plicare root for folding still hides inside a whole family of English words, including 'reply', 'complicate', 'apply', and 'pliers', all of which involve folding or bending in some figurative way. The spelling trap is the quiet middle: the unstressed 'pli' is easy to slur in speech, and the single 'l' and single 'c' tempt writers into doubling letters that stay single.

How the word is built

• du- (from duo: two)
• plic (fold)
• -ate (verb/noun suffix)