regresión

Forms

regresión f (plural regresiones)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin regressio (“a going back, (rhetoric) a figure of repetition”), a noun of action from regredior (“to go back”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb is formed from re- (“back”) and gradior (“to step, walk”).^[5][3]

Spanish has the same Latin family in regreso, from the participle noun regressus, and in regresar, both first used in canon law in 1537.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The BDELC dates the word to 1580, and the CDH's first hit without a later witness is Fernando de Herrera's commentary on Garcilaso of that year, as a term of rhetoric: Rufinianus's palilogía, la cual se llama latinamente regresión “which in Latin is called regression”, where the last word of one clause becomes the first of the next.^[3][6] This is the rhetorical sense of the Latin word.^[4][7] An isolated earlier hit, in the Obra sacada de las crónicas de San Isidoro (1385–1396), counts years de regression.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In the 19th century the word spread to science and politics: the CDH has it in mathematics and philosophy in the 1860s, in embryology, in Joaquín Costa's history of a political regresión to the 15th century (c. 1875), and of cells in a medical text of 1884.^[6] The Academy's dictionary of 1899 defined it as retrocession, the action of going back, and Echegaray marked a sense of rhetoric.^[8][9] Alemany added in 1917 the geological regresiones marinas, the retreat of the sea from lands it had covered.^[10]

The DLE now adds senses in grammar (back-formation) and psychology, a return to the behaviour of an earlier stage of life under unresolved conflicts.^[2][11] Medicine uses it for the return of a symptom or tissue to an earlier stage and for the remission of a disease, and statistics for a method of relating variables.^[12]

Timeline

• 1580 – Fernando de Herrera uses it as the Latin name of a figure of rhetoric.^[3][6]
• c. 1875 – Joaquín Costa writes of a political regresión.^[6]
• 1884 – a medical text speaks of cellular regresiones.^[6]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary defines it as retrocession.^[8]
• 1910 – the first record from the Americas, in Uruguay.^[13]
• 1917 – Alemany records the geological plural regresiones marinas.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. regression, retrocession: the action of going back, often figuratively a decline or setback: Los datos muestran una regresión del empleo en la comarca.^[2][11][1]
2. (grammar) back-formation (derivación regresiva).^[2]
3. (psychology) A return to psychological states or kinds of behaviour of earlier stages, caused by unresolved tensions or conflicts.^[2][11]
4. (medicine) The return of a symptom, tissue or organ to an earlier stage of its development; the remission of a disease.^[12]
5. (statistics) A method of assessing the relation between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables.^[12]
6. (geology, chiefly in the plural) The retreat of the sea from land it had covered.^[10]

Related words

• regreso
• regresar
• regresivo
• Latin regressio

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. regresión
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. regreso
4. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. regressiō
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. regreso
6. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. regresión
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. regressio
8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 857
9. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 112
10. ^ a b c Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1435
11. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. regresión
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. regresión
13. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. regresión