retrograde
IPA: rˈɛtrʌgreɪd
noun
- A movement backwards or opposite to the intended or normal motion.
- (astrology) The apparent movement of a planet across the sky in the opposite direction from its ordinary movement.
- One who opposes social reform, favouring the maintenance of the status quo; a conservative.
- (archaic) One who reneges on an agreement, or switches loyalties; a rebel, a renegade.
- (music) The reversal of a melody so that what is played first in the original melody is played last, and what is played last in the original melody is played first.
verb
- (transitive)
- (geography) To cause (a land feature such as a coastline or waterfall) to undergo retrogradation, that is, to travel in the direction of the land or upstream due to erosion.
- (geology) To change (minerals, rocks, etc.) metamorphically through a decrease in pressure or temperature.
- (obsolete) To cause (someone or something) to revert to an inferior or less developed state.
- (intransitive)
- To revert to an inferior or less developed state; to decline, to regress.
- (astrology, astronomy) Of a celestial body, especially a planet: to show retrogradation; to seem to move across the sky in the opposite direction from its ordinary movement.
- (geography) Of a land feature: to travel in the direction of the land or upstream due to erosion.
- (military) To retreat or withdraw from a position.
- (obsolete)
- To move backwards; to recede.
- Of the telling of an incident, etc.: to move to an earlier time.
adjective
- Directed or moving backwards in relation to the normal or previous direction of travel; retreating.
- Reverting to an inferior or less developed state; declining, regressing.
- (zoology) Of an animal: appearing to regress to a less developed form during its lifetime.
- Of the order of something: inverse, reverse.
- (music) Having a passage of music played backwards.
- Of ideas or a person: opposing social reform, favouring the maintenance of the status quo; conservative.
- (archaic)
- Involving a return to or a retracing of a previous course of travel.
- Counterproductive to a desired outcome; contradictory, contrary.
- (astronomy)
- Of a celestial body orbiting another: in the opposite direction to the orbited body's spin.
- (also astrology, often postpositive) Of a celestial body: seeming to move across the sky in the opposite direction from its ordinary movement.
- (geology) Of a metamorphic change: resulting from a decrease in pressure or temperature.
- (medicine) Of amnesia: relating to the period leading up to the episode which caused it.
- (poetry, archaic) Of verse: reading the same forwards or backwards; palindromic.
adverb
- In a reverse direction; backwards.
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Examples of "retrograde" in Sentences
- He managed the retrograde movement well.
- That is the ascendant is goes retrograde
- No stronger retrograde force exists in the World.
- Retrograde transport is common in the early stages.
- An example of that is the retrograde motion of Mars.
- Retrograde motion is motion in the contrary direction.
- Later work in the 1950s showed that the rotation was retrograde.
- A retrograde black hole spins in the opposite direction to the disk.
- Retrograde is the technique where the prime order is written backwards.
- The retrograde inversion is the values of the inversion numbers read backwards.
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