Word.ws English Dictionary

digressing

digressing is the present participle and gerund of digress.

Meaning of digress

Verb

digress (third-person singular simple present digresses, present participle digressing, simple past and past participle digressed)

  1. (intransitive) To step or turn aside; to deviate; to swerve; especially, to turn aside from the main subject of attention, or course of argument, in writing or speaking.
    • Moreover she beginneth to digress in latitude.1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “(please specify |book=I to XXXVII)”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the World. Commonly Called, The Naturall Historie of C....
  2. (intransitive) To turn aside from the right path; to transgress; to offend.
    • Thy overflow of good converts to bad;
      And thy abundant goodness shall excuse
      This deadly blot in thy digressing son.1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to...

Words formed from digressing

Questions about digressing

What is digressing the present participle and gerund of?
Digressing is the present participle and gerund of digress.

Words near digressing in the dictionary

  1. digress
  2. digressed
  3. digresses
  4. digressest
  5. digresseth
  6. digressing
  7. digressingly
  8. digression
  9. digressional
  10. digressionary
  11. digressions

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: digressing (page history and authors); digress (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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Cite this entry: “digressing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/digressing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.