Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use retrograde in a sentence

21 example sentences · adjective, adverb, noun

Retrograde means directed or moving backwards in relation to the normal or previous direction of travel; retreating. Example: “Such retrograde people still exist, resisting modernity, dragging their feet.”

Examples of retrograde by meaning

adjectiveOf ideas or a person: opposing social reform, favouring the maintenance of the status quo; conservative.

  • retrograde ideas, morals, etc.
  • Such retrograde people still exist, resisting modernity, dragging their feet.1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 74
  • Smith's misplaced politeness here is truly retrograde.1991 December 1, Rudy Grillo, “Who's The Top?”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 20, page 8

adjectiveOf a celestial body: seeming to move across the sky in the opposite direction from its ordinary movement.

  • The inauspicious connotations of Mercury retrograde are actually quite old, evidenced in an ancient branch of astrology known as horary astrology.2018 March 22, Wilder Davies, “Mercury Is Entering Retrograde Again. This Is Why So Many People Care”, in Time, archived from the original...

More sentences with retrograde

  • Anterograde tracing is a research technique which is used to trace neural connections from their source to their point of termination. The opposite technique is retrograde tracing.From the entry anterograde
  • Reproductive outflow tract obstruction can predispose to development of endometriosis, through exacervation of retrograde menstruation.2012, Sisir K. Chattopadhyay, Gynaecology for Undergraduates, page 122. From the entry exacervation
  • Retrograde irrigation of the renal pelvis with litholytic solutions (Instrumental kidney stone chemolysis).2012, H. Fleisch, Urolithiasis Research, →ISBN, page 553. From the entry litholytic
  • Unlike starch, the pentosans don't retrograde and harden after being cooked and cooled.2004, Harold McGee, chapter 9, in On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, Scribner, →ISBN. From the entry pentosan
  • In other words, a vintage aficionado does not adhere to the same temporal ideology as, for instance, a retrograde nationalist.2024, Massimo Leone, “The Past of the Future and the Future of the Past”, in Semiotic Ideologies: Patterns of Meaning-Making in Language…. From the entry retrotopia
  • What emerges is a softly supernatural story about a futurist who behaved as selfishly as any retrograde male genius.2023 April 13, Amy Nicholson, “‘Hilma’ Review: An Artist With Spirit”, in The New York Times. From the entry selfishly
  • Technically speaking, retroshade refers to a planet's "retrograde shadow period," which occurs both before and after the retrograde itself.[2023 January 11, Aliza Kelly, “When Mercury Retrograde Ends, Mercury Retroshade Begins”, in The Cut, archived from the original on 09 Aug…. From the entry retroshade
  • Mercury is retrograde, so past communications and the discoveries you were previously so sure of may come up for reexamination.2015 September 30, Annabel Gat, “Daily Horoscope: September 30, 2015”, in Vice, New York, N.Y., archived from the original on 30 Mar 2025. From the entry reexamination
  • But there's a completely different message on the radar when intense Pluto turns retrograde on Friday, April 12.2012, Pam Ciampi, “2013 Weekly Forecasts”, in Llewellyn's 2013 Daily Planetary Guide, Llewellyn Worldwide, page 47. From the entry Mighty Mouse
  • A retrograde movement to free-handed State judicial iconoclasm is impossible.2002, Henry Schofield, Essays on Constitutional Law and Equity and Other Subjects, →ISBN, page 37. From the entry free-handed
  • Typical nodal escapes occurring during sinus bradyarrhythmia, and subsequent to a nodal premature systole with retrograde A-V and aberrant ventricular conduction.1956 May 1, Alfred Pick, “Aberrant Ventricular Conduction of Escaped Beats”, in Circulation. From the entry bradyarrhythmia
  • Fig. 1 indicates that close encounters are negligible at aponigricon and for inclinations in the range 60–90° in both prograde and retrograde orbits.2013 June, R de la Fuente Marcos, C de la Fuente Marcos, “Colliding with G2 near the Galactic Centre: a geometrical approach”, in Monthly…. From the entry aponigricon
  • The diagnosis of low-volume ejaculates without retrograde ejaculation is confirmed by the absence of significant numbers of sperm in the post-ejaculatory urine.1982, Current Therapy of Infertility, page 54. From the entry post-ejaculatory
  • The outermost sphere is for photons that are orbiting oppositely to the direction of rotation of the black hole (the ones we say are on retrograde orbits).2015, Katherine Blundell, Black Holes: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, page 44. From the entry photon sphere
  • Ureteral soundage and retrograde pyelography may detect a calculus , papilloma or carcinoma in the ureter or abnormal appearance of the renal pelvis and kidney .2013, Julius Bauer, Differential Diagnosis of Internal Diseases, page 450. From the entry soundage
  • Contractions of the haustrae (sacculations in the wall of the colon formed by the arrangement of circular muscle fibers) move material in a retrograde manner to the cecum.2012, Peter R. Cheeke, Rabbit Feeding and Nutrition, →ISBN, page 25. From the entry haustrae
  • However, access to the heart cavity via a venous route becomes rather difficult after TCPC; thus, either transaortic retrograde access or a transfenestration route created during surgery is usually attempted.2021, “JCS/JHRS 2019 Guideline on Non-Pharmacotherapy of Cardiac Arrhythmias”, in Circulation Journal, volume 85, number 7, The Japanese…. From the entry transfenestration

Meaning of retrograde

  1. adjective Directed or moving backwards in relation to the normal or previous direction of travel; retreating.
  2. adjective Reverting to an inferior or less developed state; declining, regressing.
  3. adjective Of an animal: appearing to regress to a less developed form during its lifetime.

Full definition of retrograde

Questions about retrograde in a sentence

How do you use retrograde in a sentence?
Retrograde is used as an adjective, adverb and noun. For example: “Such retrograde people still exist, resisting modernity, dragging their feet.”
What is a short sentence with retrograde?
“retrograde ideas, morals, etc.”
What does retrograde mean?
Retrograde means directed or moving backwards in relation to the normal or previous direction of travel; retreating.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: retrograde (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use retrograde in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/retrograde. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.