digress
Americanverb (used without object)
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digresses,
present (3rd person singular)
-
digressed,
past participle, past
-
digressing
present participle
verb
-
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
-
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
-
had digressedperfect
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was digressingprogressive
-
were digressingprogressive
-
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:
“The Madman’s Guide” has no chapter headings but many signposts such as “to digress further” and “at last to return to.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
There are less rules outside, fewer boundaries: coffee dates prolong, walks meander, thoughts digress.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 13, 2026
I digress, though: This is a column about what is popular, not what is right and wrong!
From Slate ● Jun. 24, 2025
Not as good the next day when the 49ers got Young, a better player, for only a third-rounder, but we digress.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 3, 2023
Okay, that last one wasn’t cool, but I digress.
From "The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora" by Pablo Cartaya
Like Capra, Wasson is an entertainer, fun to read even when he digresses, as in his account of Jimmy Stewart’s stellar wartime record.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2026
The Australian-American singer and songwriter Jamie O’Neal digresses from the program just a bit—delivering Reba McEntire’s “Tammy Wynette Kind of Pain.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2026
To that end, the show, like “A Chorus Line,” digresses into the contestants’ personal lives.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 20, 2023
At almost every dramatic moment, Sampson digresses, filling in the picture with background information, some of it fascinating, some annoying.
From New York Times ● Aug. 3, 2018
Here Chirino again digresses to an account of "marriages, dowries and divorces among the Filipinos."
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
The conversation digressed, as it often does among this group, to food.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 14, 2022
He protested, quibbled, digressed or simply could not recall.
From New York Times ● Nov. 10, 2021
"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
But let us return to the point we digressed from.
From "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli
Elliptical, digressing, self-interrupting, parenthesizing, Herzen wrote as he spoke, in a torrent of ideas, reminiscences, and literary and historical allusions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026
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
“I’m not comfortable with Goofy Uncle Joe,” Biden said about his trademark casual demeanor, before digressing about the lack of “inherent power in being Vice President.”
From Salon ● Apr. 19, 2016
Though he surrenders to creative impotence, Orme never stops thinking, digressing, wondering.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 10, 2015
But it would be digressing beyond a proper boundary, to go minutely into this subject here.
From An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae A Disease Discovered in Some of the Western Counties of England, Particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of the Cow Pox by Edward Jenner
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
