Word.ws English Dictionary

retardism

retardism noun: mental retardation.

Noun

retardism (uncountable)

  1. (dated) Mental retardation
    • Epileptic seizures are rather common among the mentally retarded, but are considered to be concomitant with the retardism rather than a cause of it.1972, Charles W. Telford, James M. Sawrey, The Exceptional Individual, page 373
    • Chapter titles reveal attention to specific areas of emotional disability, including behavior disorders; symptomatic autism in adolescence; pseudo-retardism; school refusal; anorexia nervosa; and passive, aggressive, selective mutes.1974, Childhood Education, volume 51, page 226

Origin of retardism

From retard + -ism.

Questions about retardism

What does retardism mean?
Retardism means mental retardation.
What part of speech is retardism?
Retardism is a noun.

Words near retardism in the dictionary

  1. retarding
  2. retarding basin
  3. retarding basins
  4. retardingly
  5. retardings
  6. retardism
  7. retardive
  8. retardively
  9. retardlican
  10. retardlicans
  11. retardlike

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: retardism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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