Word of the Day

: October 7, 2015

reprise

noun rih-PREEZ

What It Means

1 : a recurrence, renewal, or resumption of an action

2 a : a musical repetition

b : a repeated performance : repetition

reprise in Context

"Jo Anne Worley … returns to Palm Springs this weekend for a reprise of her music and comedy act, 'For the Love of Broadway,' at the Purple Room Restaurant & Stage." — Bruce Fessier, The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, California), 1 Sept. 2015

"'Sing This All Together,' the album opener, is a ramshackle but charming number…. But the reprise at the end of the first side turns the tune inside out, a six-minute-plus psychedelic jam session preceding Mick Jagger's solo croon of the original melody." — Alex McCown, The A.V. Club (avclub.com), 24 Aug. 2015

Did You Know?

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 and 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.