A departure from the main subject or topic in speech or writing; a temporary move away from the main point.
From Latin 'digressio' (a going away) from 'digredi' (to depart). The term entered English in the 1600s, becoming standard in rhetoric and literary criticism.
Master storytellers deliberately use digression as a technique—a well-placed tangent can make the audience lean in closer, creating suspense about whether the main story will ever resume.
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