English Reference

Word

autoregressive

Phoneticsau·tore·gres·sive

Definition

adj. describing a model that creates text or data one piece at a time, where each new piece depends on all previous ones.

adj. describing a statistical process or generative neural network that predicts future values as a linear or non-linear function of its own preceding outputs.

Examples

“An autoregressive model writes an essay by predicting one word after another.”

“Generative pre-trained transformers use an autoregressive loss to learn language structure from left to right.”

“The sequential dependency inherent in autoregressive generation presents a computational bottleneck that prevents full GPU parallelization during inference.”

Examples

simple

“An autoregressive model writes an essay by predicting one word after another.”

contextual

“Generative pre-trained transformers use an autoregressive loss to learn language structure from left to right.”

complex

“The sequential dependency inherent in autoregressive generation presents a computational bottleneck that prevents full GPU parallelization during inference.”

Real-World Examples

“Autoregressive generation is how almost every large language model writes: it produces text one token at a time, and every token it writes gets fed right back in as part of the input for the next token.”
AI/TLDR · 12 Jun 2026
“These large language models are autoregressive; they predict the next word based on previous patterns.”
The Guardian · 3 Aug 2025

Etymology

From Greek autos ('self') + Latin regressivus, from regredi ('to go back, retreat'). Coined in time-series econometrics by Herman Wold in 1938 and adapted into deep learning.

Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Word family

autoregressiveAdjectiveregressionNounregressiveAdjective

Domains

AIComputingStatistics

This entry

Level
C1 · Advanced
Frequency
Rare
Updated

Scan code

englishreference.com/q/autoregressive

English Reference