Definition of "regression" []

• Reversion; retrogression. (noun)
• Relapse to a less perfect or developed state. (noun)
• Psychology Reversion to an earlier or less mature pattern of feeling or behavior. (noun)
• Medicine A subsidence of the symptoms or process of a disease. (noun)
• Biology The return of a population to an earlier or less complex physical type in successive generations. (noun)

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.

• "The study of this phenomenon gave rise to the term regression, which has since been documented in many areas."
• "Cheng said that, among a list of 10 grievances, Chen also described Taiwan's legal system as "dead" and said he mourned what he described as a regression in Taiwan's democracy."
• "We should be moving forward and devising ways to enhance all of our citizens 'lives rather than instill fear and hatred, and that only rejection of concepts and forward looking ideas leading to regression is our salvation. simp"