Reptation

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A creeping movement. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    A creeping thermal motion of entangled linear polymers countable, uncountable
  3. 3
    The motion of one plane figure around another, so that the longest diameter of one shall come into line with the shortest of the other. countable, uncountable

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁reh₁p-der. Proto-Italic *rēpō Latin rēpō Latin rēptō Proto-Indo-European *-tisder. Proto-Italic *-tjō Latin -tiō Latin rēptātiōlbor. English reptation Learned borrowing from Latin rēptātiō.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.