recursive

[ ri-kur-siv ]

adjective

1. pertaining to or using a rule or procedure that can be applied repeatedly.
2. Mathematics, Computers. pertaining to or using the mathematical process of recursion:

   a recursive function; a recursive procedure.

Other Words From

• re·cursive·ly adverb
• re·cursive·ness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of recursive¹

First recorded in 1935–40; recurs(ion) + -ive

Example Sentences

Hadrons interact recursively with themselves such that they create what physicists call a “hadronic blob,” which in simulations resemble less abstract art and look more like a tangled ball of yarn.

From Scientific American

As psychology researchers at the University of Kent wrote in 2022, an individual's "subscription to conspiracy beliefs is initially inadvertent, accelerates recursively, then becomes difficult to escape."

From Salon

“I just basically chunked up all the files into functions and classes and groups of code, generated summaries of those code chunks and then recursively summarized the file,” Shobrook said.

From New York Times

These recursive efforts were not, however, acts of simple repetition; they reflected an urge to dig ever deeper into subjects that mattered to him most.

From Los Angeles Times

Particularly in its recursive moments of erasure, Lusitano’s experience as a historical figure illustrates the kind of collective activity that has traditionally excluded composers of African descent from classical music’s conventional performance and academic institutions.

From New York Times

Related Words

• circular
• looping
• recurrent
• repeated

More About Recursive

What does recursive mean?

Something that’s recursive is looped, especially in a way that allows a process to keep repeating.

Recursive has very specific meanings in math, computer programming, and linguistics, but in each case it involves some form of repetition, especially when part of a sequence or formula relies on previous parts. Such a process is called recursion.

Example: The program is recursive: once it finishes its search function, it automatically begins again at the beginning.

Where does recursive come from?

Recursive has been around since at least the late 1700s. It comes from a combination of the Latin recursiōn-, which means “a running back,” and the adjective suffix -ive. Its noun form, recursion, has been recorded since the early 1600s. The -curs- bit in recursive comes from a word meaning to run that also shows up in words like occur. In this way, you can think of recursive as meaning re-running.

Recursive originally just meant “continually repeating,” but by the mid-1900s, it had developed a specialized mathematical sense. The math sense relates to the application of a function to its own values to generate an infinite sequence of values. The equation that gives us the famous Fibonacci sequence is such a process.

From this mathematical usage came the computational application of recursive algorithms: processes that solve a big problem by solving smaller versions of the problem. In linguistics, recursive elements are those that repeat in some pattern. For instance, bad in He’s a bad, bad man is recursive, and so is the noun-verb construction in She said he thought we knew she felt that it was a bad idea.

If you don’t quite understand recursive yet, reading this article again from the beginning would be a good idea (and recursive!).

Did you know ... ?

What are some other forms of recursive?

• recursion
• recursively
• recursiveness

What are some synonyms for recursive?

• iterative
• repeating
• looping

What are some words that share a root or word element with recursive?

• current
• incur
• occur
• precursor

What are some words that often get used in discussing recursive?

• program
• algorithm 
• repetition
• math
• linguistics
• programming

What are some words recursive may be commonly confused with?

• discursive
• precursive

How is recursive used in real life?

Recursive is most often used in the context of computer programming. More generally, it is used to describe situations involving some kind of looping.

I'm definitely adding my portfolio site as one of my projects in my portfolio site 🙂.

Recursive something 😋

— I F E D I L I ⚡ (@SauceCodee) December 8, 2019

Unfortunately, major televised awards ARE still massively important for defining mainstream's metrics of what "good" film looks like. It's a recursive phenomenon.

— Dana Schwartz (@DanaSchwartzzz) December 9, 2019

Madonna's mother was also Madonna, so picture a Renaissance painting titled "Madonna and Child" that is a recursive image of the 80's pop star holding a smaller version of herself who is holding a smaller version of herself who is holding a smaller version of herself… pic.twitter.com/FTG25JWPRY

— T I M E S C A N N E R (@timescanner) December 4, 2019

 

 

Try using recursive!

Which of the following words doesn’t fit with the general meaning of recursive?

A. looping
B. repeating
C. recurrent
D. terminating