regress

plural regresses

1. countableuncountableThe act of passing back; passage back; return; retrogression.

   Its bearing on the progress or regress of man is not an inconsiderable question.

   1886, Frederic Harrison, The Choice of Books

   1 more example

   The key-hole was still their port of egress and regress, and it resembled the aperture of a bee-hive, on a sunny day in June.

   1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 306

2. countableuncountableThe power or liberty of passing back.

   Thou shalt have egresse and regresse.

   c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

3. countableuncountablelawThe right of a person (such as a lessee) to return to a property.

present singular third person regresses · participle present regressing · participle past regressed · past regressed

1. intransitiveTo move backwards to an earlier stage; to devolve.

   Synonyms: backslide, reconvert, deconvert, reconvert · Antonyms: advance, proceed, progress

   1. intransitivehuman sciencesTo re-develop behavior one had previously grown out of, particularly a behavior left behind in childhood.

      Your nightmares stopped when you were eight years old, but after the house burned down, you regressed.

      Synonyms: backslide, reconvert, deconvert, reconvert · Antonyms: advance, proceed, progress

2. intransitiveastronomyTo move in the retrograde direction.
3. intransitivemedicineTo reduce in severity or size (as of a tumor), without reaching total remission.
4. transitivemathematicsTo perform a regression on an explanatory variable.

   When we regress Y on X, we use the values of variable X to predict those of Y.

5. transitiveTo interrogate a person in a state of trance about forgotten elements of their past.

   They regressed me, putting me under hypnosis. Then, through the hypnosis, they found out that our car was abducted right off the road and into a craft.

   2018, Michael Brein, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, The Road to Strange: UFOs, Aliens and High Strangeness