regress
regress Lexical Profile
regress Game Scores & Validity
• verb
To return to a former, less developed, or worse state, condition, or behavior.
"Young children often regress to earlier habits, such as thumb-sucking, when adjusting to a stressful change."
To analyze or model the statistical relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables.
"To test the economic hypothesis, the researchers regressed household savings against disposable income and interest rates."
To move backward or away from a point, especially of a celestial body or coastline.
"Over millions of years, the ancient sea regressed, leaving behind thick deposits of limestone and sandstone."
• noun
The act or process of returning to an earlier, less advanced, or worse state.
"Historians debated whether the sudden collapse of trade networks caused a cultural regress across the region."
A chain of reasoning in which each cause or proposition requires a prior explanation, especially an endless sequence known as an infinite regress (in philosophy and logic).
"Assuming that every creator must itself have a creator leads directly to an infinite regress."
The right or privilege of going back or returning to a place, or of claiming compensation from a third party (in law).
"The easement guaranteed the property owners free ingress, egress, and regress across the private road."
Word Nuance & Usage
Like 'progress', the pronunciation of 'regress' often shifts with its part of speech: the verb is stressed on the second syllable (ri-GRES), whereas the noun is typically stressed on the first syllable (REE-gres).
• Rhymes for regress
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed in the late 14th century from Latin 'regressus', the past participle of 'regredi' ('to go back'), formed from 're-' ('back') and 'gradi' ('to step or walk').