Repetitive

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ɹɪˈpɛtɪtɪv/

Definitions

1. Characterized by doing or saying the same thing multiple times in a way that becomes tedious or monotonous
2. Marked by actions or statements that are repeated frequently to the point of dullness or insipidity
3. Describing a pattern of behaviors or expressions that occur over and over again, leading to a sense of weariness

Etymology: "Repetitive" is a plain formation: it combines the Latin "repetitus," the past participle of "repetere" ("to repeat" or "to seek again"), with the English suffix "-ive," which turns a verb-derived base into an adjective describing a quality or tendency. The "re-" in "repetere" means "back" or "again," and "petere" means "to seek" or "to aim at," so the Latin sense was literally something like "to go back to" or "to make for again." The English word follows the same pattern as many other adjectives built from Latin participles plus "-ive," such as "competitive" and "annotative," and its meaning grew from the neutral idea of doing something again into the negative judgment that the thing is dull. The sense of tedium is in the word's modern use rather than in its Latin parts, which carried no such criticism.

Synonyms: monotonous, redundant, iterative

Antonyms: varied, novel, original