regression

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin regressiō (“a going back, return, withdrawal”),^[2][3][4][5] a noun of action from regressus, the past participle of regredior (“to go back”).^[3][5][4] The verb is formed from re- (“back”) and gradior (“to step, walk”), from Proto-Indo-European *ghredh- (“to walk, go”).^[3] The OED compares Middle French regression, régression, Spanish regresión, Portuguese regressão and Italian regressione, and the earlier English regress.^[2] The psychological sense follows German Regression.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Repetition, as a figure of speech: before 1500, in the Speculum Sacerdotale; the sense was rare and died out in the late 16th century.^[2][6] Etymonline dates the word to the early 15th century, as "act of passing back or returning".^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Latin the noun already meant a return or retreat, and in rhetoric a form of repetition, the first sense taken into English.^[2] A return to a subject discussed earlier followed about 1520.^[2] The central modern sense, a return to an earlier or less developed state, appears in 1583,^[2][5][7] and the physical sense of going back towards a point of departure in 1598.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "the act of returning or going back".^[8] From the 17th century on the word was taken into the sciences: astronomy for the apparent backward motion of a planet (1640), philosophy (1637), mathematics (1728), medicine (1868), and geology for the retreat of the sea (1902).^[2][7] The genetic sense, the drift of an inherited trait back towards the population average, is first recorded in Galton's writing of 1885,^[2][3] and the statistical sense, the relationship between dependent and independent variables, in Pearson's of 1895.^[2] The psychological sense, a return to a more childlike state, entered English in 1910 in a translation of Freud.^[2] Since 1983 programmers have used it for a change that brings back bugs or breaks working features.^[2]

Timeline

• before 1500 – repetition (obsolete).^[2]
• c. 1520 – a return to a subject discussed before (obsolete by 1620).^[2]
• 1583 – a return to an earlier or less developed state.^[2][5]
• 1598 – the act of going back (obsolete by 1864).^[2]
• 1640 – in astronomy, retrograde motion.^[2]
• 1885 – in genetics, Galton's regression towards the mean.^[2][3]
• 1895 – in statistics, the relation between dependent and independent variables.^[2]
• 1902 – in geology, a retreat of the sea from the land.^[2]
• 1910 – in psychiatry, reversion to an earlier psychological state.^[2]
• 1983 – in computing, a change that reintroduces bugs.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or process of going back, especially to an earlier or less developed state; reversion.^[5][2]
2. In psychology, a return to behaviour typical of an earlier stage of life, often as a defence mechanism against anxiety.^[9][2]
3. In statistics, the analysis of how one variable depends on one or more others, often expressed as an equation used for prediction.^[9][2]
4. In genetics, the tendency of an inherited trait to move towards the population average over generations.^[2][5]
5. In medicine, the shrinking or disappearance of a disease or of a tumour.^[2]
6. In geology, a retreat of the sea from the land, the opposite of a transgression.^[2]
7. In computing, a change to a program that brings back old bugs or breaks features that worked before.^[2]

Word family

• nonregression

Related words

• regress
• progression
• digression
• retrogression
• grade
• ingress

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins