The word progress can refer to:
1. The idea of a process in which societies or individuals become better or more modern (technologically and/or socially).
To be able to decide if something is progressive or not, if something is better or more modern than something else, one has to have a clear concept of what it means for something to be good or to be modern, and in the case of modernity, whether it is desirable or undesirable.
2. The Progress spacecraft.