Repo

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. The seizure of goods such as a car by a lender after the buyer misses payments ; a short-term loan backed by securities that are sold and bought back at a set price ; a central store holding a software project's files and version history
2. Reclaiming an item from a buyer who has stopped paying for it ; a brief financing deal in which securities serve as collateral and are repurchased later ; a version-controlled folder that keeps the source code of a programming project
3. A creditor taking back collateral from a debtor who has defaulted ; an arrangement where securities are sold now and bought back at a fixed price later ; a shared repository of code and documentation used by developers

Etymology: "Repo" is a clipping of "repossession," the shortened form that emerged from the older full word. Repossession comes from "repossess," formed by the prefix "re-" (again, back) added to "possess," which descends from Latin "possidere," "to occupy or hold," from "potis" (able) and "sedere" (to sit). So the word's core idea is taking back what was once held. The clipped form "repo" is the one that became common, cutting the word down to its first two syllables in the way many everyday English words are shortened, such as "fridge" from "refrigerator" or "phone" from "telephone." Clippings like this usually arise in casual speech and then spread into wider use, and "repo" follows that pattern, appearing as both a noun for the act of repossessing and a verb for carrying it out.

Synonyms: repossession, seizure