Meaning ofrecursivein English

Adjective

1. self-referential; referring back
   The recursive formula refers back to itself in its definition.
2. determined by preceding terms (in math)
   The recursive sequence is determined by the preceding terms.
3. a program calling itself (in computing)
   The recursive function calls itself to solve the problem.
4. computable in finite time (theoretical model)
   The algorithm is recursive and can be computed in finite time.
5. (of a function) calling itself repeatedly (in computing theory)
   The programmer wrote a recursive function to calculate the factorial.