digress

verb

di·​gress dī-ˈgres 

də-

digressed; digressing; digresses

intransitive verb

: to turn aside especially from the main subject of attention or course of argument

Did you know?

But I Digress

The verb digress is often encountered in the phrase “but I digress.” This is an idiomatic expression that has been in use in English for many hundreds of years. Examples may be found as far back as 1653, when Edmund Hall used “but I digress” in his A Scriptural Discourse of the Apostasie and the Antichrist. The phrase is used, often jocularly, by speakers and writers to indicate that they have veered away from the subject that they had been speaking or writing of, and intend to return to it.

Choose the Right Synonym for digress

swerve, veer, deviate, depart, digress, diverge mean to turn aside from a straight course.

swerve may suggest a physical, mental, or moral turning away from a given course, often with abruptness.

swerved to avoid hitting the dog

veer implies a major change in direction.

at that point the path veers to the right

deviate implies a turning from a customary or prescribed course.

never deviated from her daily routine

depart suggests a deviation from a traditional or conventional course or type.

occasionally departs from his own guidelines

digress applies to a departing from the subject of one's discourse.

a professor prone to digress

diverge may equal depart but usually suggests a branching of a main path into two or more leading in different directions.

after school their paths diverged

Examples of digress in a Sentence

The third visit, the first one after I started the drugs, is shorter, more perfunctory than the first two. Papakostas moves briskly from one question to the next and looks at his watch if we digress. —Gary Greenberg, Harper's, May 2007

Coleridge, of course, who happily called himself a … lover of parentheses, does not bridle himself, but merely produces digressions about how he should not digress. —James Wood, New Republic, 6 Sept. 1999

He had not written too much per se; he had digressed intolerably given the significance of the events under consideration. —Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life, 1997

He digressed so often that it was hard to follow what he was saying.

If I can digress for a moment, I'd like to briefly mention her earlier films.

Recent Examples on the Web

Here must digress to a famous (or infamous) decided by the U.S. Supreme Court involving pornography, being Redrup v. New York, 386 U.S. 767 (1967). —Jay Adkisson, Forbes.com, 21 July 2025

The islanders can no more control whether the whales come or go than Ella can control her cancer or Mayor Annie can corral a group of quibbling, digressing neighbors into decisive action. —Sara Holdren, Vulture, 6 Mar. 2025

Short chapters often begin in the present and then digress into episodes from the narrator’s mostly stable, untroubled past. —Lauren Christensen, New York Times, 10 Feb. 2025

Mahler handled this melodrama with remarkable composure; apparently, the two men digressed into a discussion of the brokenness of modern art. —Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 3 Feb. 2025

The operative word is slightly; don’t digress into the weeds. —Jerry Weissman, Forbes, 16 Dec. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Latin digressus, past participle of digredi, from dis- + gradi to step — more at grade entry 1

First Known Use

1529, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for digress

• abbess
• abscess
• access
• address
• assess
• caress
• confess
• depress
• distress
• egress
• excess
• express

Kids Definition

digress

verb

di·​gress dī-ˈgres 

də-

: to turn aside especially from the main subject in writing or speaking

digression

-ˈgresh-ən

noun

digressive

-ˈgres-iv

adjective