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When reprise was first adopted into English in the 15th century, it referred to a deduction or charge made yearly out of a manor or estate (and was usually used in the plural form reprises). It probably won't surprise you, then, to learn that reprise comes from an Anglo-French word meaning "seizure, repossession, or expense." Eventually, reprise came to refer to any action that was repeated or resumed. A later sense, borrowed from modern French, applies to specific types of repetition in musical compositions. That sense was eventually generalized to describe any subsequent and identical performance. It's possible, for example, to have a reprise of a television program or a book.
Examples of reprise in a Sentence
Wesley Stenzel, Entertainment Weekly, 28 Oct. 2025
Curtis and Lohan reprise their roles as mother and daughter, Tess and Anna Coleman.
—Anthony D'alessandro, Deadline, 28 Oct. 2025
Maddie Garfinkle, PEOPLE, 29 Oct. 2025
The central Slow Horses cast will return for season 6, with Oldman, Lowden, Chung, Bradley, and Thomas reprising their roles alongside Saskia Reeves, Samuel West, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Tom Brooke, Joanna Scanlan, and Jonathan Pryce.
—Randall Colburn, Entertainment Weekly, 29 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for reprise
Cite this Entry
“Reprise.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reprise. Accessed 3 Nov. 2025.
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