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Digress vs Progress - What's the difference?

digress | progress |

In intransitive terms the difference between digress and progress

is that digress is to turn aside from the right path; to transgress; to offend while progress is to improve; to become better or more complete.

As a noun progress is

movement or advancement through a series of events, or points in time; development through time.

digress

English

Verb

(es)
  • To step or turn aside; to deviate; to swerve; especially, to turn aside from the main subject of attention, or course of argument, in writing or speaking.
  • * Holland
  • Moreover she beginneth to digress in latitude.
  • * John Locke
  • In the pursuit of an argument there is hardly room to digress into a particular definition as often as a man varies the signification of any term.
  • * {{quote-song
  • , year = 1959 , title = In Old Mexico , composer = (Tom Lehrer) , passage = For I hadn't had so much fun since the day / my brother's dog Rover / got run over. / (Rover was killed by a Pontiac. And it was done with such grace and artistry that the witnesses awarded the driver both ears and the tail – but I digress .) }}
  • To turn aside from the right path; to transgress; to offend.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Thy abundant goodness shall excuse / This deadly blot on thy digressing son.

    Synonyms

    * (turn from the course of argument) sidetrack

    progress

    Alternative forms

    * (archaic)

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) .

    Noun

  • Movement or advancement through a series of events, or points in time; development through time.
  • Testing for the new antidote is currently in progress .
  • Specifically, advancement to a higher or more developed state; development, growth.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
  • , author=Stephen Ledoux , title=Behaviorism at 100 , volume=100, issue=1, page=60 , magazine= citation , passage=Becoming more aware of the progress that scientists have made on behavioral fronts can reduce the risk that other natural scientists will resort to mystical agential accounts when they exceed the limits of their own disciplinary training.}}
    Science has made extraordinary progress in the last fifty years.
  • An official journey made by a monarch or other high personage; a state journey, a circuit.
  • * 2011 , Thomas Penn, Winter King , Penguin 2012, p. 124:
  • With the king about to go on progress , the trials and executions were deliberately timed.
  • * 1887 , (Thomas Hardy), The Woodlanders :
  • Now Tim began to be struck with these loitering progresses along the garden boundaries in the gloaming, and wondered what they boded.
  • Movement onwards or forwards or towards a specific objective or direction; advance.
  • The thick branches overhanging the path made progress difficult.
    Usage notes
    * To make progress'' is often used instead of the verb ''progress''. This allows complex modification of ''progress in ways that can not be well approximated by adverbs modifying the verb. See

    Etymology 2

    From the noun. Lapsed into disuse in the 17th century, except in the US. Considered an Americanism on reintroduction to use in the UK.

    Verb

    (es)
  • to move, go, or proceed forward; to advance.
  • They progress through the museum.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2011 , date=October 1 , author=Tom Fordyce , title=Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Scotland needed a victory by eight points to have a realistic chance of progressing to the knock-out stages, and for long periods of a ferocious contest looked as if they might pull it off.}}
  • to improve; to become better or more complete.
  • Societies progress unevenly.
  • To move (something) forward; to advance, to expedite.
  • * 2011 , Thomas Penn, Winter King , Penguin 2012, p. 266:
  • Or […] they came to progress matters in which Dudley had taken a hand, and left defrauded or bound over to the king.
    Antonyms
    * congress * regress * retrogress