recapitulate
Go over again
To recapitulate is to summarize or review the main points of something—an argument, a discussion, a narrative: Let me recapitulate what we've covered so far.
The word is formal and often shortened to recap in casual speech.
In biology, recapitulate has a technical sense: an organism's development is said to recapitulate its evolutionary history when embryonic stages resemble ancestral forms.
State main points briefly
- synopsisCondensed version of content
- condenseMake more compact
- outlineSummary of key elements
- digestMetabolize or summarize
encapsulate · précis · distill · epitomize · abstract · brief · compress · boil down
summarize
State main points briefly
digest · encapsulate · précis · distill · epitomize · abstract · brief · compress · boil down · sum up
review
Critical written assessment
revisit · rehash · repeat · recount · retrace · run through · enumerate · detail · reexamine · touch on
development
Progress toward maturity
- stagesDistinct periods or platforms
- embryoOrganism before birth
- ontogenyIndividual's developmental history
phylogeny · evolution · ancestry · fetal · growth · organism · Haeckel · morphology · ancestral · reproduction
recapitulateoriginate
To come into existence
innovate · supplement · break new ground · introduce · initiate