digression

as in tangent
a departure from the subject under consideration the professor's frequent and extended digressions are the stuff of campus legend

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of digression But that’s a digression, and one imaging rationality about a tax code that screams irrationality. John Tamny, Forbes.com, 27 May 2025 In conversation, Lee is grizzled and gregarious, quick to cackle, and prone to starry-eyed digressions about music’s overwhelming power and his partner’s formidable songwriting chops. Elias Leight, Billboard, 1 May 2025 All the digressions and discombobulations, and the need to flesh out so many angles of the Stacy/Aislin dynamic, impact the directness some of the play’s key messages about mortality, community and communication. Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 13 June 2025 The author also varies the texture of the book by inserting poems, quotations, dramatic dialogue, a veiled account of her unhappy days at boarding school, and a lengthy digression on the German mystic Friederike Hauffe, who claimed to be clairvoyant and to communicate with spirits. James Marcus, New Yorker, 2 June 2025 See All Example Sentences for digression
Recent Examples of Synonyms for digression
tangent
Noun
  • Everyone had an interesting perspective to share and the conversations were thought-provoking and often led to fascinating tangents.
    Lois Alter Mark, Forbes.com, 31 July 2025
  • Information, as a result, becomes abstracted into tangents.
    Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 18 July 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Digression.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/digression. Accessed 8 Aug. 2025.

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