Saying or writing something in response to what someone else has said or written.
From Old French 'replier,' meaning to fold back or respond, derived from Latin 're-' (back) and 'plicare' (to fold). The sense of 'responding to a statement' developed naturally from the metaphor of 'folding back' a message to its sender.
It's clever how 'reply' originally meant to 'fold back'—imagining letters being folded and sent back in response—and that physical gesture of returning something became the metaphor for all verbal responses, even in the digital age where nothing actually gets folded anymore!
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.