1. (a.) Apparently moving backward or deteriorating; as, a retrograde motion; contrary to the succession of the signs, that is, from east to west, as a planet.
2. (a.) Tending or moving backward; having a backward course; contrary; -- opposed to progressive.
3. (a.) Declining from a better to a worse state; as, a retrograde people; retrograde ideas, morals, etc.
4. (v. i.) To go in a retrograde direction; to move, or appear to move, backward, as a planet.
5. (v. i.) Hence, to decline from a better to a worse condition, as in morals or intelligence.
Thesaurus Entries
aft, after, aftermost, atavistic, back, backslide, backward, cock, coming apart, cracking, crumbling, decadent, decline, declining, degenerate, descend, deteriorate, deteriorating, disimprove, disintegrate, disintegrating, draining, drooping, dwindling, ebbing, effete, fading, failing, fall astern, fall back, fall behind, falling, flagging, fragmenting, get behind, get worse, go backwards, go behind, going to pieces, grow worse, hind, hinder, hindermost, hindhand, hindmost, invert, jerk back, languishing, lapse, lapse back, let down, lose ground, marcescent, pining, posterior, postern, pull back, reactionary, rear, rearmost, rearward, recede, recessive, recidivate, recidivist, recidivous, regress, regressive, relapse, retract, retral, retreat, retroactive, retrocede, retrocessive, retroflex, retrogress, retrogressive, retrorse, retroverse, retrovert, return, returnable, reverse, reversible, reversional, reversionary, revert, revertible, revulsionary, rot, shriveling, sicken, sink, sinking, slacken, sliding, slip back, slipping, slumping, subsiding, tabetic, tail, waning, wasting, wilting, withering, worsen, worsening
