reduplicate

Imagine a mischievous sprite who loves making something happen twice: that's the feeling of "reduplicate." It means to repeat, copy, or make something double. In ordinary use, it can simply mean to do or make again, but it is most often seen in language study. There, it describes repeating all or part of a word to add meaning or create a pattern. For example, some languages repeat part of a word to show plurality or emphasis.

"Reduplicate" comes from the Latin "reduplicare," meaning "to double." At its core, it means to repeat something, make a second copy of it, or cause it to appear in doubled form. Depending on the context, it can mean either a simple repetition or a more marked kind of doubling.

You probably will not hear it much in casual conversation, but it appears in careful or technical writing. Its clearest home is linguistics. Many languages use reduplication, which means repeating all or part of a word to show ideas like plurality, intensity, repetition, or habitual action. For instance, in Indonesian, "orang" means "person," and "orang-orang" means "people."

Outside linguistics, the word can also be used more generally to mean duplicating or doubling something, though that use is less common today. In older or formal writing, you might see it used for a repeated action, a doubled form, or a copied version of something.

You will not often hear someone say, "I need to reduplicate this report," but you might read about "reduplicated syllables" in a linguistics paper or a word form that has been repeated for emphasis. So the word carries the basic idea of repetition, with a special and very important use in the study of language.