The pronunciation varies depending on the word, with/ɹiː/,/ɹɪ/ (some pronunciations),/ɹɛ/ found in words likereplay,resist andrevolution, respectively.
The hyphen is not normally included in words formed using this prefix, except when the absence of a hyphen would make the meaning unclear. Hyphens are used in the following cases:
When the word that the prefix is combined with begins with a capital letter.
re-Christianise
When the word that the prefix is combined with begins with anotherre-.
re-record
In British usage, when the word that the prefix is combined with begins withe.
re-entry (North American:reentry)
When the word formed is identical in form to another word in whichre- does not have any of the senses listed above.
The chairs have been re-covered (covered again)
The chairs have been recovered (obtained back)
Adieresis may be used instead of a hyphen, as inreëntry. This usage is now rare, but extant; seediaeresis (diacritic) for examples and discussion.
re- ishighlyproductive, to the point of being almostgrammaticalized — almost any verb can havere- applied, especially in colloquial speech. Notable exceptions to this include all forms ofbe and themodal verbscan,should, etc. When used productively, it is always pronounced/ɹiː/.
re- + marcher(“to function”) → remarcher(“to function again”)
meaningless generic derivation prefix, especially asr-. From semantic bleaching of sense 1 followed by the unprefixed terms becoming obsolete or diverging in meaning.
The alternative formred- occurs before vowels orh in old formations; it is used with the linking vowel-i- in the wordredivīvus. The-d- can be compared to that insēditiō (comparesē- andsed) and inprōd-,antid-,postid- (alternative forms ofprō-,ante-,post-). It may originate from the particle*de[3] or from the use of -d as an archaic ablative singular ending. The use of the formre- before vowels, as inreaedifico, reinvito, is not seen until Late Latin.[3] (See Lewis & Short,A Latin Dictionary, 1897, s.v. "re" and "D").
Before consonants, its usual form isrĕ- with short /e/, but the following consonant is sometimes doubled. In some cases, such asreccidī, the double consonant comes from syncope of an originally reduplicated syllable of the base word: compare the unprefixed formcecidī. In other cases, such asredducō,relligiō,relliquiae, the double consonant may have arisen from preconsonantal use ofred-, with assimilation of-d- to the following consonant.
^De Vaan, Michiel (2008), “re-, red-”, inEtymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill,→ISBN,page516
^R. B. Burnaby (1905),Elegiac Selections from Ovid,page98
↑3.03.1Lindsay, Wallace Martin (1894),The Latin Language, page591
The use with adjectives is typical of Ibero-Romance. Compare Italianstra- (from Latinextra-), Frenchtrès (from Latintrans-; now spelt separate, but formerly also a prefix).
