Parler des tâches ménagères en français

What does “repasser” mean in French?

Repasser is passer with re- on the front, and it means what it looks like: to go past again, to drop by again. It is also the ordinary verb for ironing, because that is exactly the motion — passing the hot iron back and forth over the cloth. So je repasse le linge is “I’m doing the ironing”, and the appliance itself is un fer à repasser, an iron for re-passing.

A third sense is redoing something: repasser un examen is to resit an exam, repasser un film is to show it again. Context sorts them out cleanly — je repasse demain is a visit, j’ai du repassage is a pile of laundry, and une planche à repasser is an ironing board. The verb is recorded from the twelfth century in the “cross again” sense; the laundry use came later.