Replication

How to spell replication

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce replication

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does replication mean?

1. nounThe act or process of making an exact copy or reproducing something.
2. nounThe repeating of an experiment or study to confirm that its results hold up.
3. nounThe process by which DNA copies itself before a cell divides.

Replication in a sentence

• The software licence forbids any replication of the files.

• The finding gained credibility after successful replication by an independent lab.

• Errors during DNA replication can lead to mutations.

• Faithful replication of the original recording was the studio's main goal.

• A lack of replication left the original claim in serious doubt.

• The textbook diagram showed each stage of replication in detail.

Where does replication come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb replicare, which literally meant 'to fold back' or 'to unfold', built from re- meaning 'again' or 'back' and plicare meaning 'to fold'. In late Latin and medieval usage it picked up the sense of repeating or answering, and English borrowed it through Old French in the 1300s, where a 'replication' was at first a reply, especially a formal answer in a legal pleading. Over time the idea of repeating shifted toward the modern meaning of making an exact copy or duplicate. The same plicare root that means 'to fold' also gives us 'reply', 'complicate', and 'pliable', and remembering that 'plic' is the fold at the heart of the word helps fix the awkward middle that writers sometimes garble. By the twentieth century it had become a standard term in science for reproducing an experiment and in biology for the copying of DNA.

How the word is built

• re- (again, back)
• plic (fold)
• -ation (noun of action)