digression

• (obsolete) degression, disgression

From Old French digressiun or disgressiun, from Latin dīgressiōnem, from dīgressus + -iō (suffix forming abstract nouns from verbs), the past passive participle of dīgredior (“to step away, to digress”), from dis- + gradior (“to step, walk, go”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dʌɪˈɡɹɛʃən/, /dɪˈɡɹɛʃən/
• (US) IPA^(key): /daɪˈɡɹɛʃən/

• Audio (Southern England):

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digression (countable and uncountable, plural digressions)

1. An aside, an act of straying from the main subject in speech or writing.

   The lectures included lengthy digressions on topics ranging from the professor's dog to the meaning of life.

   • 2022 November 21, Barney Ronay, “Iran’s brave and powerful gesture is a small wonder from a World Cup of woe”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     History tells us stodgy, cautious stuff, cardigan-football is the way to go here. The 1966 World Cup kicked off with 0-0 draw against Uruguay so tedious the Guardian match report contains a whimsical digression on the writer’s urge to drift off to sleep in the second half.

2. (generally uncountable) The act of straying from the main subject in speech or writing, (rhetoric) particularly for rhetorical effect.

   make digression... by way of digression...

3. (obsolete) A deviancy, a sin or error, an act of straying from the path of righteousness or a general rule.
   • 1517, Stephen Hawes, Pastime of Pleasure, i, ll. 12 ff:

     Nature...
     More stronger hadde her operacyon
     Than she hath nowe in her dygressyon.

4. (now rare) A deviation, an act of straying from a path.
   • 1670, Guillaume Girard, translated by Charles Cotton, History of the Life of the Duke of Espernon, Bk. i, Ch. iv, p. 144:

     By this little digression into Gascony, the Duke had an opportunity... to re-inforce himself with some particular Servants of his.

5. (astronomy, physics) An elongation, a deflection or deviation from a mean position or expected path.
   • 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, Bk. VI, Ch. iv, p. 288:

     This digression [of the Sun] is not equall, but neare the Æquinoxiall intersections, it is right and greater, near the Solstices, more oblique and lesser.

• (rhetorical device): digressio, ecbole

• digress

• detour

• “digression, n..”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1896.

From Latin dīgressiōnem.

• IPA^(key): /di.ɡʁɛ.sjɔ̃/ ~ /di.ɡʁe.sjɔ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

digression f (plural digressions)

1. digression

• “digression”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

digression

1. digression
   • c. 1380s, [Geoffrey Chaucer, William Caxton, editor], The Double Sorow of Troylus to Telle Kyng Pryamus Sone of Troye [...] [Troilus and Criseyde], [Westminster]: Explicit per Caxton, published 1482, →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], book I, [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, →OCLC:

     It were a long disgression
     Fro my matere.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

digression c

1. (somewhat solemn) a digression

• sidospår
• stickspår
• utvikning

• digression in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• digression in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• digression in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)