Where does “catastrophic backtracking” come from?

catastrophic backtracking (English) comes from English catastrophic, from English -ic, from English image, from French image, from Portuguese imagem, from Spanish imagen, from Italian immagine, from Latin imāginem — in.

catastrophic backtracking (English): An excessively large amount of backtracking that occurs with certain regular expressions, due to an exponentially large number of possible matching paths to check

Definitions

  1. An excessively large amount of backtracking that occurs with certain regular expressions, due to an exponentially large number of possible matching paths to check

Ancestry of “catastrophic backtracking”, step by step

catastrophic backtracking traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.

via English catastrophic

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1EnglishcatastrophicOf or pertaining to a catastrophe; Disastrous;...
2English-icUsed to form adjectives from nouns with the...
3EnglishimageAn optical or other representation of a real...
4Frenchimagepicture, image; frame; first-person singular...
5Portugueseimagemimage; picture; figure; image; image; face
6Spanishimagenimage
7Italianimmagineimage; imago
8Latinimāginem
9Latinim-Alternative form of in-; form of "in"; in
10Latinīn-un-, non-, not
11Latinînin, at, on, upon, from (space)
12Latinenlookǃ beholdǃ; reallyǃ?; come onǃ
13Proto-Italicenin
14Proto-Indo-Europeanh₁énin

via English backtracking

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Englishbacktrackingpresent participle of backtrack; The act of one...
Every word from Proto-Indo-European h₁én