Recursion Meaning and Definition
Recursion
Pronunciation
/rɪˈkɜːrʃən/
Part of Speech
Noun
Definition
The act of repeating a process or step within the same function or process, causing a function to call itself again and again, without stopping, until a stopping condition is met.
Examples
- The recursive function kept calling itself until the input size was less than 10.
- The program used recursion to calculate the factorial of a number.
- The algorithm used recursion to traverse the tree data structure.
Synonyms
- Iteration
- Self-referential
Antonyms
- Distributed processing
- Parallel processing
Etymology
The word “recursion” comes from the Latin “recurri”, meaning “to come back”, and is first used in the 15th century to describe the process of a function calling itself.
Usage Notes
When using recursion, it is important to ensure that the stopping condition is well-defined to avoid infinite loops.
Cultural References
Recursion is often used as a literary device in stories and novels to create a sense of continuity and cycles.
Idiomatic Expressions or Phrases
Digging one’s own grave
Related Words or Phrases
- Iteration
- Bisection
- Fibonacci sequence
Collocations
- Recursive function
- Recursive algorithm
Frequency of Use
Recursion is commonly used in computer science and mathematics, but is also used in literature and popular culture.
Common Misspellings
- Recursion is often misspelled as “reccursion” or “recussion”.