A single-word verb for "cause to loop/repeat"

Question

I am looking for a (preferably single-word) verb that means "cause to loop/repeat". I will use it in a very technical context, so I don't really have a proper example to give.

So far, I have been using the verb "wind", as in winding an old clock. I am not sure if it actually has such a meaning, though. It seemed similar enough, but I don't feel so comfortable with it now.

Per request, here's an example:

The robot A winds the robot B by asking it to fetch a jar of air from outside the window, repeatedly.

The robot A winds the robot B by asking it to do the following: Fetch a jar of air from outside the window, repeatedly.

This is not the exact way I will be using it but it is very close. The exact use case is with the Turing Machines, and appears after 7 pages of preliminary definitions and examples in my document.

Second edit: I changed the example, the previous one was ambiguous and got interpreted differently than I had intended.

Edit 2.1: To make it crystal clear, I am looking for a verb that makes the robot A in the example do its thing that I called "winding" only once, and then the robot B should respond to that by doing a specific action repeatedly and forever.

Answer 1

Particularly in a computer science context, I would use "iterates" (or 'iteratively" if an adverb form is needed).

• The robot A iterates the process by asking the robot B to fetch a jar of air from outside the window, repeatedly.
• The robot A iteratively invokes the robot B by asking it to fetch a jar of air from outside the window, repeatedly.

The use of "winds" in the question seems to be a piece of newly coined jargon. One can assign a special meaning to a word, particularly in a technical context, but one must be very clear that it is a newly coined special sense, and define it (and indicate why it is being used) if no other word quite conveys the exact sense wanted. Many technical scientific, mathematical, and engineering terms were originally coined in this way.

Answer 2

The best I can advise is the verb "to loop" - make repeat constantly. This mostly applies to programming, but could be used in other contexts.

Another options that would probably work is "to sequenize" or "to sequencify" as suggested in the comments below. They aren't actual verbs that exist. The meaning is "to create a repeating sequence". Be aware though that very few will understand the meaning if not specified upfront.

Answer 3

Make restart its process is probably the best you can do if you want to be compatible with non-technical English.

Robot A makes robot B restart its process by asking it to fetch a jar of air from outside the window.

The word you were probably trying to get at is rewind - which does mean "wind a tape until it's at the start" - which might work well if you are talking about Turing machines.

IIRC the concept of the Turing machine was that given a specific set of instructions laid out on a sequentially accessible tape, any mathematical operation can be done. With this establishing context, you can say something like:

Robot A makes robot B rewind its "tape" by asking it to fetch a jar of air from outside the window.

In rewind X, X has to be a tape or something that works with tape's streaming model, like a video, etc.