digress
v.to move away from the main topic of a conversation or a piece of writing. You do this when you start talking about something else instead of staying on track.
v.to move or cause to move away from a course, subject, or direction. Often used to describe a speaker or writer who strays from the main point of their argument.
“The speaker began to digress and talked about his childhood.”
“The lawyer was warned by the judge not to digress into personal matters during the cross-examination.”
“While the author occasionally digresses into historical anecdotes, the central thesis of the book remains focused on the economic shifts of the nineteenth century.”
From Latin digressum, past participle of digredi.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.