Redisplay

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To show content or images again on a screen or display device after changes or clearing have occurred
2. The act of rendering visual information anew on a monitor or interface to reflect updates or restore visibility
3. Re-presenting graphical or textual data on an electronic display following an event requiring refresh or reloading

Etymology: Redisplay is a plain formation: the prefix "re-", meaning "again" or "anew", attached to "display". The more interesting story is in "display" itself, which took a surprising route into English. It descends from Latin "displicare", literally "to scatter" or "to unfold", built from "dis-" and "plicare", "to fold". The sense of unfolding or spreading out before the eye is what carried it toward "exhibit" and, eventually, the screens we now use. English received the base word through Old French, where the Latin root had become a verb meaning to show or unfold, and the word appears in Middle English in that sense. Its modern computing meaning, the rendering of information on a screen, came much later, so "redisplay" is a recent compound built on that older stem. The re- prefix is attached in the ordinary way, with no special history of its own.

Synonyms: reshow, reveal again, exhibit again, re-present