Etymologically
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regression

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ɹɪˈɡɹɛʃ.ən/[1]
  • US: /ɹiːˈɡɹɛʃ.ən/, /ɹɪˈɡɹɛʃ.ən/[1]

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

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