over and over again

adverb

Repeatedly; again and again; many times.

Meanings

adverbover and over again (not comparable)
  1. idiomaticnot comparableRepeatedly; again and again; many times.

    That is something that I think of over and over again, a kind of mantra about why self-revelation is actually a political gesture.

    2019 June 30, John Williams, “‘I Was Done With All the Silences’: How an Academic Got Personal in ‘Notes to Self’”, in The New York Times
    3 more examples

    He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,—by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection.

    1861, Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage

    It resembled them in the sense that it was not ended, when it was past, but continued to unfold, in Watt's head, from beginning to end, over and over again, the complex connexions of its lights and shadows, the passing from silence to sound and from sound to silence, the stillness before the movement and the stillness after, the quickenings and retardings, the approaches and the separations, all the shifting detail of its march and ordinance, according to the irrevocable caprice of its taking place.

    1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC

    A big red-faced man next to Jeremy was crying over and over again: That'll teach him to meddle with our women." "That'll teach him to meddle with our women."

    1992, Hugh Walpole, Jeremy and the Ruffians

    Synonyms: over and over

Synonyms & antonyms

adverbRepeatedly; again and again; many times.

More synonyms by meaning

Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

Translations

Esperanto denove kaj denove
  • denove kaj denoverepeatedly
Polish wielokrotnie, raz po raz
  • wielokrotnierepeatedly
  • raz po razrepeatedly
Cite this entry
APA

over and over again. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/over%20and%20over%20again

MLA

“over and over again.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/over%20and%20over%20again. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “over and over again,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/over%20and%20over%20again.

Source: over and over again on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.