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Retrograde   /rˈɛtrəgrˌeɪd/   Listen
verb
Retrograde  v. i.  (past & past part. retrograded; pres. part. retrograding)  
1.
To go in a retrograde direction; to move, or appear to move, backward, as a planet.
2.
Hence, to decline from a better to a worse condition, as in morals or intelligence.



adjective
Retrograde  adj.  
1.
(Astron.) Apparently moving backward, and contrary to the succession of the signs, that is, from east to west, as a planet. "And if he be in the west side in that condition, then is he retrograde."
2.
Tending or moving backward; having a backward course; contrary; as, a retrograde motion; opposed to progressive. "Progressive and not retrograde." "It is most retrograde to our desire."
3.
Declining from a better to a worse state; as, a retrograde people; retrograde ideas, morals, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Retrograde" Quotes from Famous Books



... The same retrograde movement may be traced, in the relation which the authors themselves have assumed towards their readers. From the lofty address of Bacon: "these are the meditations of Francis of Verulam, which that posterity ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... and caused it to illustrate the fine art of waging heroic war upon a life-insurance principle. Equally renowned in arms for its feats and legs, and for being always on hand when any peculiarly daring retrograde movement was on foot, this limber martial body continually fell back upon victory throughout the war, and has been coming forward with hand-organs ever since. Its complete History, by the same gentleman who is now adapting the literary struggles of MR. E. DROOD to American minds and matters, was ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various

... this tardy hour. We reached the camp some hours into the night, and, after a little delay, calling in the pickets, and securing some native women who lived in the vicinity, to prevent their carrying word of our movement to the enemy, the detachment commenced its retrograde march,—leaving the enemy victorious, and free to go ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... foretold, the water failed entirely by the end of the first day's retrograde march. Our fluid aliment was now nothing but gin; but this infernal fluid burned my throat, and I could not even endure the sight of it. I found the temperature and the air stifling. Fatigue paralysed my limbs. More than once ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... your sister foorth, Send Constantine to us; so leave me all, I am best accompanied with none at all. [Exeunt. Manet Duke. Either the Plannets, that did meete together In the grand consultation of my birth, Were opposite to every good infusion, Or onely Venus stood as retrograde; For, but in love of this none-loving trull, I have beene fortunate even since my birth. I feele within my breast a searching fire Which doth ascend the engine of my braine, And when I seeke by reason to suppresse The heate it gives, the greaters the excesse. I ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen


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