digress
Americanverb (used without object)
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digresses,
present (3rd person singular)
-
digressed,
past participle, past
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digressing
present participle
verb
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to depart from the main subject in speech or writing
-
to wander from one's path or main direction
Synonym Usage
See deviate.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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digresssimple
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digressessimple
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have digressedperfect
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has digressedperfect
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am digressingprogressive
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are digressingprogressive
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is digressingprogressive
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have been digressingperfect progressive
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has been digressingperfect progressive
Past
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digressedsimple
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had digressedperfect
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was digressingprogressive
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were digressingprogressive
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had been digressingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of digress
First recorded in 1520–30; from Latin dīgressus “departed,” past participle of dīgredī “to go off, depart, digress,” from dī- di- 2 + -gredī (combining form of gradī “to go”; cf. grade)
Explanation
If we're talking about science fiction, and you suddenly go off on a long tangent about the cost of grape soda, you digress. When a person digresses, they stray from the topic. It's easy to understand why you digressed from the main topic. You were incredibly excited, speeding on caffeine, and, let's face it, you've never been at a loss for words. Don't get me wrong: I love your wanderings — how you drift from one topic to the next, letting your mind explore. The problem was that the meeting was running late and there was no time to let you digress. I had to pull you back to the main topic. I didn't want our potential new partners to get the idea that these digressions were typical.
Vocabulary lists containing digress
Essential Academic Vocabulary for High School Students, List 2
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Grade 11, List 1
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ACT Vocabulary List
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
I digress, though: This is a column about what is popular, not what is right and wrong!
From Slate ● Jun. 24, 2025
But I digress — this is supposed to be a positive column.
From Seattle Times ● May 3, 2023
I’m sure there’s no strategic advantage to examining a superior changeling ship’s technology when many of them have taken over Starfleet, but we digress.
From New York Times ● Apr. 6, 2023
But a hit single makes her joining the Six inevitable, and things progress, and regress, and digress and become a mess from there.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 2, 2023
Okay, that last one wasn’t cool, but I digress.
From "The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora" by Pablo Cartaya
Its narrative offers few character sketches, jumps around in time and digresses into subjects that distract more than they enlighten.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026
He digresses to tell me the story, however, and it’s literally longer than this entire article’s word count.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 13, 2026
She pads and digresses; what could be a sentence becomes a paragraph.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 26, 2022
Where Sterne’s “Tristram” digresses to prevent plot from happening, “CoDex 1962” sows plot upon plot, in the tradition of epics and sagas.
From New York Times ● Oct. 16, 2018
The point from which he digresses, and to which he reverts, is Shachau, and 'tis presumably from Shachau that he assigns bearings to the two provinces forming the subject of the digression.
From The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Henry Yule
And during a meeting in early January with oil and gas executives that was supposed to be about rebuilding Venezuela’s oil industry, Trump apparently digressed yet again into talking about the ballroom.
From Slate ● Apr. 30, 2026
"I am not a Bravo executive, so I don’t think I can speak to this on," she digressed.
From Fox News ● Oct. 14, 2021
Then he digressed, noting, “I know a lot about West Point…. Trust me, I’m like a smart person.”
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 25, 2017
A year later, with four games remaining, the Rams’ offense is basically in the same spot — but with a running game that has digressed from 2015.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 7, 2016
But let us return to the point we digressed from.
From "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli
But then Will spoils the effect by digressing into a jarring non sequitur:
From Salon ● Dec. 20, 2025
But when I read it, I realized all the things I thought were my flaws — the digressing, the self-contradiction — in Bernhard that was the writing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 27, 2022
“The naira is digressing and we are trying to keep the value of the art,” he said, calling crypto “the currency where people don’t think that I am paying too much or too less”.
From Reuters ● Oct. 12, 2021
“I know people want the branches of government to work together, rather than digressing into politics.”
From Washington Post ● Jan. 17, 2017
But that I loose not my selfe in digressing so farre in this my iustification, I will returne againe to my first course.
From The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. by Richard Hakluyt
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
