The word recapitulation can mean: A summary Recapitulation (music), a section of musical sonata form where the exposition's repeated in an altered form and the development's concluded Recapitulation theory, a scientific theory no longer accepted. 2: The supposed repetition in the development of an individual of the evolutionary stages represented in its ancestral types. Recapitulation (Irenaeus), a religious theory Recapitulation (Castaneda), a spiritual practice appearing first in the writi… (More on Recapitulation)