Reciting

How to spell reciting

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce reciting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does reciting mean?

1. verbSaying a passage, list, or piece aloud from memory, often for an audience.

Reciting in a sentence

• The actor spent the evening reciting his lines for the morning audition.

• She calmed her nerves by quietly reciting the safety instructions before the flight.

Where does reciting come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb recitare, which meant 'to read aloud' or 'to repeat from memory'. It was built from the prefix re-, here carrying the sense of 'out' or 'again', joined to citare, meaning 'to call, summon, or set in motion', itself a frequentative of ciere, 'to rouse or call forth'. The original Roman sense was very specific: to read a written text aloud to an audience, a practice central to Latin literary culture. English took the verb 'recite' in the fifteenth century, partly through Old French and partly straight from Latin, and the -ing form simply marks the ongoing action. The same citare root surfaces in everyday relatives such as 'cite', 'recital', and 'incite', which is a useful reminder that the spelling keeps a single c followed by 'it', not 'sit'.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• cit (from Latin citare: to call, summon)
• -ing (present participle)