repetition

Pluralrepetitions

Formsrepetitions, repetitioning, repetitioned

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   Doing or saying something again, or being done again; also, a single time something is repeated.

   The constant repetition of the same commercial drove viewers to change the channel.

   With each repetition, the rumor grew more detailed and less believable.

   Similarreiteration, repeat, recurrence

   Note

   The spelling follows Latin repetitio rather than English repeat, so the ea becomes a plain e: repetition, never repeatition. The word is both mass and count. Counted, it means one occurrence, and in Letitia Elizabeth Landon's Ethel Churchill (1837) a disappointment grows more acute on every repetition.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   One controlled performance of a single exercise movement; a group of repetitions makes up a set.

   Her trainer had her do three sets of twelve repetitions on the bench press.

   Lower the bar slowly and pause for a moment at the bottom of each repetition.

   Similarrep

   Note

   Lifters count in reps, the gym's short form, and they count rather than time: a workout is written as so many sets of so many repetitions. The count is strict. Only a full, controlled motion qualifies, so a half movement or a bar bounced off the chest is not a clean repetition.

3. 3
   verbtransitive or intransitive

   To make a petition again, after an earlier one has been made.

   Lawyers advised the tenants to repetition the board once the new evidence came in.

   For years the families went from court to court, petitioning and repetitioning without success.

   Note

   This verb is petition with re- in front, and it has nothing to do with the Latin borrowing behind the act of repeating, though the two are spelled alike. Its forms follow petition: repetitioning, repetitioned, and a third-person repetitions that looks exactly like the noun's plural. It reads most clearly set beside petition itself, as in petitioning and repetitioning.

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