DIGRESS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does digress mean? 

• DIGRESS (verb)
  The verb DIGRESS has 2 senses:

1. lose clarity or turn aside especially from the main subject of attention or course of argument in writing, thinking, or speaking

2. wander from a direct or straight course

  Familiarity information: DIGRESS used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DIGRESS (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they digress    ... he / she / it digresses   
Past simple: digressed   
Past participle: digressed   
-ing form: digressing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lose clarity or turn aside especially from the main subject of attention or course of argument in writing, thinking, or speaking

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

digress; divagate; stray; wander

Context example:

Don't digress when you give a lecture

Hypernyms (to "digress" is one way to...):

tell (let something be known)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

digression (a turning aside (of your course or attention or concern))

digression (a message that departs from the main subject)

digressive ((of e.g. speech and writing) tending to depart from the main point or cover a wide range of subjects)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Wander from a direct or straight course

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

depart; digress; sidetrack; straggle

Hypernyms (to "digress" is one way to...):

deviate; divert (turn aside; turn away from)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Something is ----ing PP
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

digression (wandering from the main path of a journey)

 Context examples 

By-and-by, when you've got a name, you can afford to digress, and have philosophical and metaphysical people in your novels, said Amy, who took a strictly practical view of the subject.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

December 15 (coming over the weekend of December 14-15) will be so special that I have to digress here before moving on to the last important day this month that Mars contacts another planet.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Perhaps not, said Mr. Wickfield; and you bring me back to the question, with an apology for digressing.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Till he came and had examined the child, their apprehensions were the worse for being vague; they suspected great injury, but knew not where; but now the collar-bone was soon replaced, and though Mr Robinson felt and felt, and rubbed, and looked grave, and spoke low words both to the father and the aunt, still they were all to hope the best, and to be able to part and eat their dinner in tolerable ease of mind; and then it was, just before they parted, that the two young aunts were able so far to digress from their nephew's state, as to give the information of Captain Wentworth's visit; staying five minutes behind their father and mother, to endeavour to express how perfectly delighted they were with him, how much handsomer, how infinitely more agreeable they thought him than any individual among their male acquaintance, who had been at all a favourite before.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

“Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be permitted to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are for ever dispelled—that my peace is shattered and my power of enjoyment destroyed—that my heart is no longer in the right place—and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man. The canker is in the flower. The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at his work, and will soon dispose of his victim. The sooner the better. But I will not digress. “Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber's influence, though exercised in the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my intention to fly from myself for a short period, and devote a respite of eight-and-forty hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past enjoyment. Among other havens of domestic tranquillity and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards the King's Bench Prison. In stating that I shall be (D. V.) on the outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil process, the day after tomorrow, at seven in the evening, precisely, my object in this epistolary communication is accomplished.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)