Recursion

//ɹɪˈkɜː(ɹ)ʒən// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of recurring. countable, uncountable

    "The inhabitants predicate the recursion of these storms by numerous other signs, and are prompt to take every precaution to avoid their effects."

  2. 2
    (mathematics) an expression such that each term is generated by repeating a particular mathematical operation; also, the repeated application or execution of a pattern, function or definition; an expression that is recursive wordnet
  3. 3
    The act of defining an object (usually a function) in terms of that object itself. countable, uncountable

    "n! = n × (n − 1)! (for n > 0) or 1 (for n = 0) defines the factorial function using recursion."

  4. 4
    The invocation of a procedure from within itself. countable, uncountable

    "This function uses recursion to compute factorials."

Synonyms

All synonyms
reentryreturn

Example

More examples

"Apparently, he had never heard of recursion."

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin recursiō (“the act of running back or again, return”), from recurrō (“run back; return”), from re- (“back, again”) + currō (“run”).

Related phrases

Kleene's recursion theoreminfinite recursionleft recursionminimal recursion semanticsprimitive recursionrecursion theorytail recursion

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.