digression
noun
di·gres·sion
dī-ˈgre-shən 
də-
1
: the act or an instance of leaving the main subject in an extended written or verbal expression of thought : the act or an instance of digressing in a discourse or other usually organized literary work
Every place Hamilton, his parents, or his wife visited over a century's time is described at length; everyone he met merits at least a minor biographical digression.—
Willard Sterne Randall
Willard Sterne Randall2
archaic
: a going aside
Examples of digression in a Sentence
the professor's frequent and extended digressions are the stuff of campus legend
Recent Examples on the Web
After all, these are only minutes-long digressions.
—R. Eric Thomas, The Mercury News, 23 Jan. 2025
Tristram relates this tale of woe in a tangle of digressions, punctuated with breathless dashes.
—Daniel Immerwahr, The New Yorker, 20 Jan. 2025
As recently as his Republican convention speech, Trump gave a talk that was provided to the press in advance, sticking to the script and then going off-book for a seemingly endless series of digressions, deviations and detours into the Twilight Zone.
—Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 20 Jan. 2025
Carlo Emilio Gadda, for example, was an old-school modernist, interested in wordplay and dialect and spiraling digressions.
—Christopher Tayler, Harper's Magazine, 2 Jan. 2025
See all Example Sentences for digression 
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R. Eric Thomas, The Mercury News, 23 Jan. 2025
Tristram relates this tale of woe in a tangle of digressions, punctuated with breathless dashes.
—Daniel Immerwahr, The New Yorker, 20 Jan. 2025
As recently as his Republican convention speech, Trump gave a talk that was provided to the press in advance, sticking to the script and then going off-book for a seemingly endless series of digressions, deviations and detours into the Twilight Zone.
—Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 20 Jan. 2025
Carlo Emilio Gadda, for example, was an old-school modernist, interested in wordplay and dialect and spiraling digressions.
—Christopher Tayler, Harper's Magazine, 2 Jan. 2025
See all Example Sentences for digression
Dictionary Entries Near digression
Cite this Entry
“Digression.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/digression. Accessed 14 Feb. 2025.
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