digresst (dior digres)

[L. digre us, n., a going apart, A digre from my history. Fuller , Ch. Hist., XI. x. 43. digre ion (dior di-gresh'on), n. [ digre iun , F. digre ion = Pr. disgre io = Sp. digresion = Pg. digre ão = It. digre i one , digre io ( n- ), digredi , pp. digre us , go apart: see digre , v.] 1. The act of digre ing; deviation from a regular or appointed course; especially, a departure from the main subject under consideration; an excursion of speech or writing. But what? Methinks I deserve to be pounded for straying from poetry to oratory: but both have such an affinity in the wordish considerations, that I think this digres sion will make my meaning receive the fuller understand. ing. Sir P. Sidney , Def. of Poesie (ed. 1810), p. 97. Digre ions in a book are like foreign troops in a state, which argue the nation to want a heart and hands of its own. Swift , Tale of a Tub, vii. 2. Deviation from the path of virtue; transgre ion. [Rare.] Then my digre ion is so vile, so base, That it will live engraven in my face. Shak., Lucrece, 1. 202. 3. In astron., the angular distance in the ecliptic of the inferior planets Mercury and Venus from the sun. digre ional (dior di-gresh'on-al), a. [ of digre ion. The wild diffusion of the sentiments, and the digre ive sallies of imagination, would have been compre ed and restrained by confinement of rhyme. Johnson, Young. digre ion. digre ively (dior di-gres'iv-li), adv. By way digyn (di'jin), n. [NL. * digynus,