Word.ws English Dictionary

retrophilia

retrophilia noun: the attraction to and preference for that which is from or characteristic of the past.

Noun

retrophilia (uncountable)

  1. The attraction to and preference for that which is from or characteristic of the past.
    • At the same time, a wave of retrophilia started to crest. Clothing companies like Homage (which reproduces vintage-esque T's celebrating sports and pop culture from the '70s through the '90s) came up with unique ways to commercialize the interest in yesteryear.2010 November 21, Kevin Alexander, “The secret to selling cool”, in Boston Globe

Origin of retrophilia

From retro- + -philia.

Words formed from retrophilia

Questions about retrophilia

What does retrophilia mean?
Retrophilia means the attraction to and preference for that which is from or characteristic of the past.
What part of speech is retrophilia?
Retrophilia is a noun.

Words near retrophilia in the dictionary

  1. retropharyngeal
  2. retropharyngeally
  3. retropharynx
  4. retrophile
  5. retrophiles
  6. retrophilia
  7. retrophrenic
  8. retrophylogenomics
  9. retropicalization
  10. retropinnid
  11. retropinnids

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: retrophilia (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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Cite this entry: “retrophilia.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/retrophilia. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.