Advertisement - Continue reading below

Definition of "progress" []

  • Movement, as toward a goal; advance. (noun)
  • Development or growth: students who show progress. (noun)
  • Steady improvement, as of a society or civilization: a believer in human progress. See Synonyms at development. (noun)
  • A ceremonial journey made by a sovereign through his or her realm. (noun)
  • To advance; proceed: Work on the new building progressed at a rapid rate. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "progress" in a sentence
  • "If there are no intelligible or describable social processes, then there may be progress, but there will be no sociology and no _methods of progress_."
  • "But by progress must not be understood the imaginary and metaphysical _law of progress_, which should lead the generations of man with irresistible force to some unknown destiny, according to a providential plan which we can logically divine and understand."
  • "A human society can either fall backward or progress forward, but it cannot _progress backward_."