Main Entry: re·ca·pit·u·la·tion

Pronunciation: \-ˌpi-chə-ˈlā-shən\

Function: noun

Date: 14th century

1 : a concise summary
2 : the hypothetical occurrence in an individual organism's development of successive stages resembling the series of ancestral types from which it has descended so that the ontogeny of the individual retraces the phylogeny of its group
3 : the third section of a sonata form