regress
/ˈɹiːˌɡɹɛs/
regress noun: the act of passing back; passage back; return; retrogression.
Noun
regress (countable and uncountable, plural regresses)
- The act of passing back; passage back; return; retrogression.
- The key-hole was still their port of egress and regress, and it resembled the aperture of a bee-hive, on a sunny day in June.1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 306
- Its bearing on the progress or regress of man is not an inconsiderable question.1886, Frederic Harrison, The Choice of Books
- The power or liberty of passing back.
- Thou shalt have egresse and regresse.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- The right of a person (such as a lessee) to return to a property.
Verb
regress (third-person singular simple present regresses, present participle regressing, simple past and past participle regressed)
- To move backwards to an earlier stage; to devolve.
- To re-develop behavior one had previously grown out of, particularly a behavior left behind in childhood.
- Your nightmares stopped when you were eight years old, but after the house burned down, you regressed.
- To re-develop behavior one had previously grown out of, particularly a behavior left behind in childhood.
- To move in the retrograde direction.
- To reduce in severity or size (as of a tumor), without reaching total remission.
- To perform a regression on an explanatory variable.
- When we regress Y on X, we use the values of variable X to predict those of Y.
- To interrogate a person in a state of trance about forgotten elements of their past.
- They regressed me, putting me under hypnosis. Then, through the hypnosis, they found out that our car was abducted right off the road and into a craft.2018, Michael Brein, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, The Road to Strange: UFOs, Aliens and High Strangeness
regress meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
regress in Hindi
- to move backwards to an earlier stage
- अवनति avanti
regress in Tamil
- இழிதல், பின்னடைவு, பின்னிறக்கம், பின்னோக்கு வாதம்
regress in Urdu
- رجعت, واپسی
regress in Bengali
- পিছিয়ে যাওয়া, অবনতি ঘটা
More languagesFewer languages
- regress in Malayalam
- പുറകോട്ടുപോകുക, മടങ്ങിപ്പോകുക, തിരിയുക, മുൻ അവസ്ഥയിലേക്കു തിരിയുക
- regress in Kannada
- ಹಿಂದೆಸರಿ, ಹಿಂಜರಿ, ಪಿಂಜರಿ, ಹಿಂದೆ ಹೋಗು
Examples of regress in a sentence
- Instead, it may be a regressed version of the original personality.
- Because these lesions often spontaneously regress, care must be taken to not overcall these lesions on FNA.
- Vista was peak design and we’ve regressed since then.
Synonyms of regress
Antonyms
Forms of regress
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | regresses |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | regresses |
| present participle | regressing |
| past participle | regressed |
| past | regressed |
Origin of regress
(verb) From Latin regressus, past participle of regredior (“to go back”), from re- (“back”) + gradior (“to go”). Doublet of regressus.
Words formed from regress
Phrases with regress
Words that rhyme with regress
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- SMS
- success
- compress
- largesse
- ness
- profess
- confess
- distress
- depress
- excess
- guess
- prepossess
- undress
- CBS
- ingress
- oppress
- redress
- transgress
- assess
- cess
- duress
- fess
- fluoresce
- Hesse
- less
- mayoress
- obsess
- tress
- unless
- yes
- accresce
- acquiesce
- aggress
- BESS
- caress
- clothes press
- congress
- defervesce
- digress
- ess
- foulness
- Hess
- intumesce
- jess
- lazy S
- liquesce
- repress
- second-guess
Questions about regress
- What does regress mean?
- Regress means the act of passing back; passage back; return; retrogression.
- What is regress in Hindi?
- Regress in Hindi is अवनति (avanti). See Regress meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is regress?
- Regress can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce regress?
- Regress is pronounced /ˈɹiːˌɡɹɛs/.
- What is the plural of regress?
- The plural of regress is regresses.
Words near regress in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: regress (page history and authors); regress (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); regress (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); regress (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); regress (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); regress (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-regress (noun).wav.
Cite this entry: “regress.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/regress. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.