Congress

Etymological studies are often fraught with irony, as I've shown in the common root of 'slug' and 'slog' earlier on. Sometimes, the irony approaches a step at a time; this is the case with 'congress'. The Latin word gradus means 'step'; it can be seen in the words like 'gradual' (='stepwise') or 'graduate' (='move up a step').

But there's a whole bunch of words based around a modified version of gradus, the '-gress' version which is found in 'congress', 'progress', 'egress', 'digress', and 'regress'. 'Congress' has to do with 'step together'; 'progress' is 'step forward'; 'egress' is 'step out'; 'digress' is 'step away' and 'regress' is 'step backwards'.

That's probably why I once said, "I prefer egress to regress, and egrets to regrets." There is a whole ball of meaning in there which is best captured via haiku or some such. It is fascinating when a whole bunch of things congress and progress is thus made.