pilgrim's progress

noun

A morally or spiritually testing journey, often filled with obstacles, learning experiences, and eventual transformation or enlightenment.

Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

noun
  1. A morally or spiritually testing journey, often filled with obstacles, learning experiences, and eventual transformation or enlightenment.
  2. Any slow, difficult, dour or funless journey.

    Lady Rosie - so mad-cap in the gaiety of summer's full-blowing that even the organizer of the prim-and-properness forgot about it. Thus what has been planned to be a sort of pilgrim's progress turned out to be a fairy frolic[.]

    1961, Xavier Herbert, Soldiers' Women, Netley, SA: Fontana Books, published 1978, page 74
  3. Moral, spiritual, meaningful, or redemptive progress.

Origin

Referring to the Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress, 1678, by John Bunyan.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

pilgrim's progress. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pilgrim's%20progress

MLA

“pilgrim's progress.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pilgrim's%20progress. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pilgrim's progress,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pilgrim's%20progress.

Source: pilgrim's progress on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.