recursive
adj.adj. describing a process that repeats itself by using its own results to create the next step. It is like a loop that calls itself to solve a problem.
adj. relating to or involving the repeated application of a procedure or function to its own results. Often describes algorithms or mathematical functions that call themselves in their own definition.
The program uses a recursive function to calculate the factorial of a number.
The software engineer designed a recursive algorithm to efficiently search through the nested folders of the file system.
In computer science, a recursive function is one that solves a problem by breaking it down into smaller, identical subproblems until it reaches a base case that can be solved directly.
Learned borrowing from New Latin recursīvus. Equivalent to recurse + -ive.