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As you might guess, regress is the opposite of progress. So if a disease regresses, that's generally a good thing, but in most other ways we prefer not to regress. If someone's mental state has been improving, we hope that person won't start to regress; and when a nation's promising educational system begins to regress, that's a bad sign for the country's future. Economists often distinguish between a progressive tax and a regressive tax; in a progressive tax, the percentage that goes to taxes gets larger as the amount of money being taxed gets larger, while in a regressive tax the percentage gets smaller.

Examples of regress in a Sentence

Verb The patient is regressing to a childlike state. in extreme circumstances, people sometimes regress to the behavior they exhibited in childhood

Recent Examples on the Web: Noun The guys also give a short recap of the Jazz’s regular season — one that saw them regress record-wise. — Xoel Cardenas, The Salt Lake Tribune, 14 Apr. 2022 Several months after moving in, Ziona started to regress. — New York Times, 29 Mar. 2022 Leto and Hathaway have the slightly unenviable task of playing characters who neither learn nor grow, but rather regress and devolve, so the conflicts between them and their co-stars are often repeated. — Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 18 Mar. 2022 But when schools shut down, Michelle O’Neal saw Janae regress in reading and math. — Perry Stein, Anchorage Daily News, 15 Mar. 2022 Should a runner take insufficient rest, add too much stress, or a combination of both, their gains will likely stall or regress, ending up with them being burnt out or injured. — Rick Prince, Outside Online, 18 July 2019 Hachimura and Avdija regress while Kyle Kuzma fails to live up to his contract. — Christopher Dodson, Forbes, 13 Oct. 2021 Herbert broke rookie records and looked like there will be no regress in his first game of 2021. — Dave Hyde, sun-sentinel.com, 16 Sep. 2021 School-age kids may become clingy or appear to regress. — Marion Hart, Forbes, 15 Sep. 2021 Recent Examples on the Web: Verb Cease’s slider was a strong pop up generator (13.9% pop up rate), though his low 14.9% liner rate was largely due to random chance and is likely to regress to the mean moving forward. — Tony Blengino, Forbes, 26 Apr. 2022 In all, the Raptors had six players reach double figures against a Cleveland defense that continues to regress without All-Star center Jarrett Allen. — Chris Fedor, cleveland, 24 Mar. 2022 Their bullpen was lights out, but a bullpen is bound to regress. — Daniel Kohn, SPIN, 6 Apr. 2022 But a hazy quarterback situation and lack of a first-round pick are reasons to wonder if the Niners, who haven't reached postseason in back-to-back seasons under coach Kyle Shanahan and GM John Lynch, might regress. — Nate Davis, USA TODAY, 31 Mar. 2022 The right is using it as a smokescreen for a power grab, one that seeks to regress California to a Reagan-era police state. — Justin Phillips, San Francisco Chronicle, 28 Nov. 2021 If this is not properly outlined and monitored, the tendon could potentially regress instead of progress. — Laura Peill, Outside Online, 2 Apr. 2020 Willis, who previously spoke to SELF about her how rewarding it's been to share her struggles with skin-picking on Instagram, concluded her post by speculating that her skin's health might regress at some point. — Carolyn L. Todd, SELF, 24 Sep. 2021 Oh, and his liner rate allowed was way BELOW average at 15.8% and should be expected to regress upward moving forward. — Tony Blengino, Forbes, 4 Jan. 2022 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'regress.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.