'Capitulate' Versus 'Recapitulate'

@GrammarGirl Why is "capitulate" to give up but "REcapitulate" to summarize?

— Cris G (@crisgita) February 13, 2014

A listener named Cris asked why “capitulate” means “to give up,” but “recapitulate” means to summarize. What a great question! Why does the meaning of “recapitulate” (“to summarize”) seem so different from the meaning of “capitulate” (“to surrender”) when the only difference seems to be the “re-” prefix? The answer gives us a fascinating look at how the meanings of words can change over time.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), “capitulate” actually does come from a Latin word that in the 700s meant "to summarize.” In an extension of that meaning, by the 1100s it meant "to arrange things into chapters." And in fact, the same Latin word also gives us the English word “chapter.” 

Somehow arranging things into chapters lead to another extension of the meaning to “arrange conditions.” In the 1300s, “capitulate” meant "to hold an assembly," and by the 1400s, it meant "to stipulate in an agreement." 

Then, in the 1500s, “capitulate” and “recapitulate” both entered English, and the OED and the Online Etymology Dictionary agree that at that time people started using “capitulate” to talk about drawing up terms, conditions, and agreements, and by the 1600s it referred to surrendering because when you surrender, you usually write up or agree to terms of surrender.

“Recapitulate” didn't go through the same evolution and kept closer to the earlier "summarize" meaning with the “re-“ prefix adding a sense of going through something a second time to make the summary.

It’s an especially interesting example of language change and how meanings can evolve and diverge—how two very closely related words started out with the same meaning and eventually came to mean things that are quite different. But if you follow it step by step through the centuries, you can see the logic of what looks incomprehensible when you’re just looking at the end result.

Thanks for the question,...

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