Iteration

How to spell iteration

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce iteration

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does iteration mean?

1. nounThe act of repeating a process or statement, often as one cycle in a series.
2. nounA particular version of something produced through a repeated cycle of development.

Iteration in a sentence

• Each iteration of the test brought the results closer together.

• The latest iteration of the app fixed the login problem.

• The team improved the layout with every iteration of the design.

• This iteration of the contract added two extra clauses.

Where does iteration come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb iterare, meaning 'to repeat' or 'to do again', which was built directly on iterum, the Latin adverb for 'again' or 'a second time'. From iterare came the noun iteratio, describing the act of doing something over again, and English took this in through the late 1500s as 'iteration', initially meaning simple repetition. For centuries it kept that plain sense of saying or doing a thing repeatedly, often in legal or rhetorical contexts. In the twentieth century mathematics and then computing gave it a fresh life: each pass through a repeated calculation or design cycle came to be called an iteration, and software teams now speak of producing a new iteration of a product. A useful spelling reminder is that the core is the single root 'iter', with no doubled letters, so the word stays slim throughout.

How the word is built

• iter- (from Latin iterum: again)
• -ation (noun of action)