digression

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English digressioun, also disgression,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French digressiun, also disgressiun,^[4][5][6] and directly borrowed from Latin dīgressiō (“a going away, departure”).^[3][5][7][8] The Anglo-Norman digression is recorded from about 1136–65.^[9] The Latin noun is formed from dīgressus, the past participle of dīgredior (“to go aside, deviate”),^[3][8][4] from dis- (“apart, aside”) and gradior (“to step, go”),^[3][5] from Proto-Indo-European *ghredh- (“to walk, go”).^[3] The verb digress is recorded only from 1529 and may be a back-formation from digression.^[5][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A departure from the main subject in speaking or writing: about 1374, in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, spelled disgression.^[4][2][5] Barnhart and the Middle English Dictionary date the poem to about 1385.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

The OED notes that the sense of turning aside from the subject of a discourse is both the earliest and the most frequent.^[4] Lydgate used the phrase make digressioun, to digress, in the 1420s.^[2] The literal sense, a turning aside from a path, is recorded only from 1552, after the figurative one, and is now somewhat rare;^[4] a moral going astray (1517–98) and a deviation from a rule (1615) did not last.^[4] From 1646, in Sir Thomas Browne, it was used in astronomy for the deviation of a heavenly body from a line or from its mean position,^[4] and Johnson (1755) quoted that passage under his second sense, "deviation", beside "a passage deviating from the main tenour or design of a discourse".^[10]

Timeline

• c. 1374 – a departure from the main subject in speech or writing.^[4][2] Barnhart dates the word to about 1385.^[5]
• 1517 – moral deviation (obsolete by 1598).^[4]
• 1552 – a turning aside from a path; deviation.^[4]
• 1615 – deviation from a rule (obsolete).^[4]
• 1646 – in astronomy, deviation from a line or from the mean position.^[4][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of turning aside from the main subject in speech or writing: The lecturer was prone to digression.^[11][12][6]
2. A passage or remark that wanders from the main subject; an aside: After a long digression about his childhood, he returned to the story.^[11][12][4]
3. (archaic) A turning aside from a path; a deviation.^[6][4]
4. (astronomy) The deviation of a heavenly body from a line or from its mean position.^[4][10]

Word family

• digressional
• digressionary

Related words

• digress
• grade
• progress
• regress
• degree

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins