egression
noun
Egression — the rare, formal name for the act of stepping outward
Definition
The act of coming (or going) out; becoming apparent
In depth
Egression, like egress, names the act of going or coming out, becoming apparent after concealment. The word is even rarer than its close relative, occasionally encountered in older or highly formal writing, naming the same essential act of emergence with slightly different grammatical shading.
Origin
The word shares its root entirely with 'egress,' both descending from Latin egredi, to go out. Its slightly different form, with the '-ion' suffix more typically marking a process or its result, suggests an alternate development within the same Latin word family, one that ultimately lost ground in English to the shorter and more frequently used 'egress.'
Usage examples
"The astronomer recorded the precise moment of the planet's egression from behind the sun's disk."
"Old architectural texts spoke of the building's egression points with the same careful precision modern codes still demand."
"Her egression from public life, once total, became, over the following decades, the subject of considerable speculation."
How to use it
Egression is archaic and rarely used in contemporary writing, mostly surviving in older astronomical texts or deliberately antiquated prose. Modern writers will almost always prefer 'egress,' 'emergence,' or simply 'exit' instead.
Related concepts
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