retrograde

adjective more retrograde · most retrograde

1. Directed or moving backwards in relation to the normal or previous direction of travel; retreating.
2. Reverting to an inferior or less developed state; declining, regressing.
3. Of an animal: appearing to regress to a less developed form during its lifetime.
4. Of the order of something: inverse, reverse.
5. Having a passage of music played backwards.
6. Of ideas or a person: opposing social reform, favouring the maintenance of the status quo; conservative. retrograde ideas, morals, etc.

   Similar: reactionary, traditionalist, backward · Opposite: liberal, progressist, reformist

7. archaic Involving a return to or a retracing of a previous course of travel.
8. archaic Counterproductive to a desired outcome; contradictory, contrary. In going back to school in Wittenberg, / It is most retrograde to our desire: / And we beseech you, bend you to remain
9. Of a celestial body orbiting another: in the opposite direction to the orbited body's spin.

   Opposite: direct, prograde

10. also, often, postpositional Of a celestial body: seeming to move across the sky in the opposite direction from its ordinary movement. Mercury retrograde
11. Of a metamorphic change: resulting from a decrease in pressure or temperature.

    Opposite: prograde

12. Of amnesia: relating to the period leading up to the episode which caused it.
13. archaic Of verse: reading the same forwards or backwards; palindromic.

Opposite: anterograde, prograde

adverb more retrograde · most retrograde

1. In a reverse direction; backwards.

   Similar: retrogradely

noun retrogrades

1. A movement backwards or opposite to the intended or normal motion.
2. The apparent movement of a planet across the sky in the opposite direction from its ordinary movement.
3. One who opposes social reform, favouring the maintenance of the status quo; a conservative.

   Similar: mossback, mossyback, reactionary, traditionalist

4. archaic One who reneges on an agreement, or switches loyalties; a rebel, a renegade.
5. 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 retrogrades · retrograding · retrograded

1. transitive 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.
2. transitive To change (minerals, rocks, etc.) metamorphically through a decrease in pressure or temperature.
3. obsolete, transitive To cause (someone or something) to revert to an inferior or less developed state.
4. intransitive To revert to an inferior or less developed state; to decline, to regress. […] Monna Brigida, who had retrograded to false hair in Romola's absence, but now drew it off again and declared she would not mind being gray, if her dear child would stay with her.
5. intransitive 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.
6. intransitive Of a land feature: to travel in the direction of the land or upstream due to erosion.
7. intransitive To retreat or withdraw from a position.
8. intransitive, obsolete To move backwards; to recede. A dabble in the stocks does not always turn out profitably; cotton is sometimes heavy on our hands, and real estate will sulkily retrograde, when, by the calculation, it ought to have advanced.
9. intransitive, obsolete Of the telling of an incident, etc.: to move to an earlier time.