regressive.

1. Moving back toward an earlier, less developed or previously superseded condition.

2. Taking a larger proportion of income from lower-income people than from higher-income people.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• regressive change
• regressive tendency

On the page

The critic called the change regressive because it removed safeguards introduced after earlier failures.

The regressive tendency was assessed against an explicit standard of institutional development.

Usage notes

Primary category: economics / business / social science. Forms: Comparative more regressive; superlative most regressive where gradation is meaningful. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: economic explanation, resource analysis, incentive analysis, comparison. Disciplines: economics, business, social science. Commonness: moderately common.