Word of the Day! (Digress)

[Hamed Aalaee]

DIGRESS

(di-GRES or dy-GRES)

To wander, stray from the point, ramble, deviate, go off in another direction.

Digress

comes from the Latin digressus, which comes in turn from the

prefix

dis-, apart, and gradi, to go, walk, step. Digress means literally to go

apart, walk away. From the same Latin source come

ingress (IN-gres), the

place you walk in, the entrance; and

egress (EE-gres), the place you walk

out, the exit.

Digress

once was used of a physical wandering or turning aside, but that

sense is now archaic (ahr-KAY-ik), which means old-fashioned. Today we

do not say, “She turned right and digressed down Main Street.” Instead,

digress

is used of speaking or writing that departs from the main point or

subject at hand and wanders off in another direction: “In a business report

or an oral presentation, it's important to stick to the facts and not digress”;

“If she hadn't digressed so much, her lecture would have been more

interesting.”

The corresponding noun is

digression (di-GRESH-un or dy-GRESH-un):

“The old man's story was full of humorous digressions.”

And Even more examples form Longman:

[intransitive]
to talk or write about something that is not your main subject:
Do you mind if I digress for a moment?

—digression /daû"greÐÊn/ noun [uncountable and countable] 
After several long digressions he finally reached the interesting part of the story.

Before we do that, I'd like to digress for a minute and say a word or two about the new books.

During the lecture, Miller often digressed to give the history behind each theory.

 

 

--
Yours,

Hamed Aalaee
groups.google.com/group/toefltops