Definition of "regress" in English

noun

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

2. The power or liberty of passing back.

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

verb

1. (intransitive) To move backwards to an earlier stage; to devolve.

2. (intransitive, astronomy) To move in the retrograde direction.

3. (intransitive, medicine) To reduce in severity or size (as of a tumor), without reaching total remission.

4. (transitive, statistics) To 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. (transitive) To interrogate a person in a state of trance about forgotten elements of their past.