Recapitulation definition

Recapitulation





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3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Recapitulation \Re`ca*pit`u*la"tion\
     (r[=e]`k[.a]*p[i^]t"[-u]*l[=a]"sh[u^]n), n. [LL.
     recapitulatio: cf. F. recapitulation.]
     1. The act of recapitulating; a summary, or concise statement
        or enumeration, of the principal points, facts, or
        statements, in a preceding discourse, argument, or essay.


        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. (Zool.) That process of development of the individual
        organism from the embryonic stage onward, which displays a
        parallel between the development of an individual animal
        (ontogeny) and the historical evolution of the species
        (phylogeny). Some authors recognize two types of
        recapitulation, {palingenesis}, in which the truly
        ancestral characters conserved by heredity are reproduced
        during development; and {cenogenesis} ({kenogenesis} or
        {coenogenesis}), the mode of individual development in
        which alterations in the development process have changed
        the original process of recapitulation and obscured the
        evolutionary pathway.
        [PJC]
  
              This parallel is explained by the theory of
              evolution, according to which, in the words of
              Sidgwick, "the developmental history of the
              individual appears to be a short and simplified
              repetition, or in a certain sense a recapitulation,
              of the course of development of the species."
              Examples of recapitulation may be found in the
              embryological development of all vertebrates. Thus
              the frog develops through stages in which the embryo
              just before hatching is very fish-like, after
              hatching becomes a tadpole which exhibits many
              newt-like characters; and finally reaches the
              permanent frog stage. This accords with the
              comparative rank of the fish, newt and frog groups
              in classification; and also with the succession
              appearance of these groups. Man, as the highest
              animal, exhibits most completely these phenomena. In
              the earliest stages the human embryo is
              indistinguishable from that of any other creature. A
              little later the cephalic region shows gill-slits,
              like those which in a shark are a permanent feature,
              and the heart is two-chambered or fish-like. Further
              development closes the gill-slits, and the heart
              changes to the reptilian type. Here the reptiles
              stop, while birds and mammals advance further; but
              the human embryo in its progress to the higher type
              recapitulates and leaves features characteristic of
              lower mammalian forms -- for instance, a distinct
              and comparatively long tail exists. Most of these
              changes are completed before the embryo is six weeks
              old, but some traces of primitive and obsolete
              structures persist throughout life as "vestiges" or
              "rudimentary organs," and others appear after birth
              in infancy, as the well-known tendency of babies to
              turn their feet sideways and inward, and to use
              their toes and feet as grasping organs, after the
              manner of monkeys. This recapitulation of ancestral
              characters in ontogeny is not complete, however, for
              not all the stages are reproduced in every case, so
              far as can be perceived; and it is irregular and
              complicated in various ways among others by the
              inheritance of acquired characters. The most special
              students of it, as Haeckel, Fritz M["u]tter, Hyatt,
              Balfour, etc., distinguish two sorts of
              recapitulation {palingenesis}, exemplified in
              amphibian larvae and {coenogenesis}, the last
              manifested most completely in the metamorphoses of
              insects. Palingenesis is recapitulation without any
              fundamental changes due to the later modification of
              the primitive method of development, while in
              coenogenesis, the mode of development has suffered
              alterations which obscure the original process of
              recapitulation, or support it entirely.
                                                    --Encyclopedia
                                                    Americana,
                                                    1961.
        [PJC]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  recapitulation
       n 1: emergence during embryonic development of various characters
            or structures that appeared during the evolutionary
            history of the strain or species [syn: {palingenesis}]
            [ant: {cenogenesis}]
       2: a section of a musical composition or movement in which
          themes introduced earlier are repeated
       3: a summary at the end that repeats the substance of a longer
          discussion [syn: {recap}, {review}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  69 Moby Thesaurus words for "recapitulation":
     abbreviation, abridgment, abstract, account, accounts, apocope,
     body count, capitulation, census, compression, condensation,
     conspectus, copy, core, count, critique, curtailment,
     dwelling upon, elaboration, elision, ellipsis, epitome, essence,
     foreshortening, gist, going over, head count, inventory, iteration,
     main point, meat, nose count, pith, practicing, precis,
     reaffirmation, recap, recital, reckoning, recount, recountal,
     recounting, reduction, rehash, rehearsal, reissue, reiteration,
     repertory, reprint, restatement, resume, retelling, retrenchment,
     review, run-through, rundown, shortening, statement, substance,
     sum, sum and substance, summary, summation, summing, summing up,
     syncope, synopsis, telescoping, truncation
  
  

















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