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Wiktionary:Word of the day/2021/October 9

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Word of the day
for October 9
retrograde adj
  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.
    1. (zoology) Of an animal: appearing to regress to a less developed form during its lifetime.
  3. Of the order of something: inverse, reverse.
    1. (music) Having a passage of music played backwards.
  4. Of ideas or a person: opposing social reform, favouring the maintenance of the status quo; conservative.
  5. (archaic)
    1. Involving a return to or a retracing of a previous course of travel.
    2. Counterproductive to a desired outcome; contradictory, contrary.
  6. (astronomy)
    1. Of a celestial body orbiting another: in the opposite direction to the orbited body's spin.
    2. (also astrology) Of a celestial body: seeming to move across the sky in the opposite direction from its ordinary movement.
  7. (geology) Of a metamorphic change: resulting from a decrease in pressure or temperature.
  8. (medicine) Of amnesia: relating to the period leading up to the episode which caused it.
  9. (poetry, archaic) Of verse: reading the same forwards or backwards; palindromic.

retrograde adv

  1. In a reverse direction; backwards.

retrograde n

  1. A movement backwards or opposite to the intended or normal motion.
    1. (astrology) The apparent movement of a planet across the sky in the opposite direction from its ordinary movement.
  2. One who opposes social reform, favouring the maintenance of the status quo; a conservative.
  3. (archaic) One who reneges on an agreement, or switches loyalties; a rebel, a renegade.
  4. (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.

retrograde v

  1. (transitive)
    1. (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.
    2. (geology) To change (minerals, rocks, etc.) metamorphically through a decrease in pressure or temperature.
    3. (obsolete) To cause (someone or something) to revert to an inferior or less developed state.
  2. (intransitive)
    1. To revert to an inferior or less developed state; to decline, to regress.
    2. (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.
    3. (geography) Of a land feature: to travel in the direction of the land or upstream due to erosion.
    4. (military) To retreat or withdraw from a position.
    5. (obsolete)
      1. To move backwards; to recede.
      2. Of the telling of an incident, etc.: to move to an earlier time.

Today, the Saturday nearest the first quarter moon between mid-September and mid-October in 2021, is the second of two Astronomy Days in the year.

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