Word.ws English Dictionary

catastrophic backtracking

catastrophic backtracking noun: an excessively large amount of backtracking that occurs with certain regular expressions, due to an exponentially large number of possible matching paths to check.

Noun

catastrophic backtracking (uncountable)

  1. (regular expressions) An excessively large amount of backtracking that occurs with certain regular expressions, due to an exponentially large number of possible matching paths to check.

Synonyms of catastrophic backtracking

Origin of catastrophic backtracking

From catastrophic + backtracking.

Questions about catastrophic backtracking

What does catastrophic backtracking mean?
Catastrophic backtracking means an excessively large amount of backtracking that occurs with certain regular expressions, due to an exponentially large number of possible matching paths to check.
What part of speech is catastrophic backtracking?
Catastrophic backtracking is a noun.

Words near catastrophic backtracking in the dictionary

  1. catastrophe bonds
  2. catastrophe theory
  3. catastrophes
  4. catastrophic
  5. catastrophic antiphospholipid syndrome
  6. catastrophic backtracking
  7. catastrophic forgetting
  8. catastrophic interference
  9. catastrophic kill
  10. catastrophic kills
  11. catastrophic mortality

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: catastrophic backtracking (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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