recursion

English

Wikipedia

A recursive shape

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɜː(r)ʒən

Noun

recursion (plural recursions)

1. The act of recurring.
2. (mathematics) The act of defining an object (usually a function) in terms of that object itself.

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

3. (computing) The calling of a function from within that same function.

   This function uses recursion to compute factorials.

Derived terms

• tail recursion
• infinite recursion

Related terms

• recur
• recurrent
• recurrence
• recurse
• recursive
• recursivity

Translations

the act of recurring

• Finnish: toisto (fi), uusinta (fi), rekursio (fi)
• Greek: αναδρομή (el) (anadromí) f

• Italian: ricorsività (it) f

in mathematics

• Dutch: recursie (nl) f
• Finnish: rekursio (fi)
• German: Rekursion (de) f
• Greek: αναδρομή (el) (anadromí) f
• Italian: ricorsività (it) f

• Polish: rekurencja (pl) f
• Russian: рекурсия (ru) (r'ekúrsija) f
• Spanish: recurrencia (es) f
• Swedish: rekursion (sv) c

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

• Dutch: recursie f
• French: recursion (fr) f

• Spanish: recursión f
• German: Rekursion f