Repeated

How to spell repeated

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce repeated

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does repeated mean?

1. adjectiveDone, said, or happening more than once, often many times.
2. verbSaid or did something again, or said something that someone else had already said.

Repeated in a sentence

• adjective

  Despite repeated attempts, the password reset link never arrived.

• verb

  The instructor repeated the safety warning before the climb began.

• adjective

  The tenant complained about repeated delays in the building repairs.

• verb

  He repeated the experiment to confirm the original result.

Where does repeated come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb repetere, which combined re-, meaning 'again', with petere, meaning 'to seek, aim at, or strike towards'. The literal sense was therefore 'to seek once more' or 'to go after again', and from that grew the idea of doing or saying something a second time. English took it during the late Middle Ages by way of Old French repeter, settling into the modern verb 'repeat' from which the form 'repeated' is built. The same petere root surfaces in a surprising family of English words, including 'petition' (a seeking of favour), 'compete' (to seek alongside others), and 'appetite' (a seeking towards food). Knowing that the core is peat from petere, not 'peet' or 'peit', helps fix the single vowel pattern in the middle of the spelling.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• peat (from Latin petere: to seek, aim at)
• -ed (past tense / participle suffix)