Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Influencing or applying to a period prior to enactment: a retroactive pay increase.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Retroacting; having a reversed or retrospective action; operative with respect to past circumstances; holding good for preceding cases.
Wiktionary
- adj. Extending in scope, effect, application or influence to a prior time or to prior conditions
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Fitted or designed to retroact; operating by returned action; affecting what is past; retrospective.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. descriptive of any event or stimulus or process that has an effect on the effects of events or stimuli or process that occurred previously
- adj. affecting things past
Etymologies
- French rétroactif, from Latin retroāctus, past participle of retroagere, to drive back : retrō-, retro- + agere, to drive; see ag- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Well, I'm not sure this proposal is retrospective I prefer the term retroactive, actually.”
“BLITZER: That's what they call retroactive immunity, if you like.”
“This is what we call a retroactive confession of evolutionist ignorance, where, as I've observed before, evolutionists exhibit predictable behavior where they "only admit how weak the evidence was for evolution after they have some new allegedly 'transitional' fossil in their hands.”
“The deals are termed "retroactive reinsurance" because such policies cover losses that have already occurred but whose final costs aren't yet known.”
The Wall Street Journal: AIG Unloads Asbestos Liabilities; Buffett Gets 'Float'
“Girl With A Purpose reports that Jamaica's teachers are on strike, protesting the government's “inability to pay them the $4 billion in retroactive salaries owed …””
Global Voices in English » Jamaica: High Teen Pregnancy and Sexual Violence Rates
“October 31, 2007, the VA paid Toth $93,240.00 in retroactive disability payments and Toth also began receiving over $2,500.00 per month in disability payments.”
“But fear not, Danny Williams, because Jack Layton has promised an accord with Newfoundland worth as much as $10 billion in retroactive equalization payments.”
“HD's mother is demanding an extremely late-term retroactive abortion.”
“Realizing her mistake, HD's mother is demanding an extremely late-term retroactive abortion.”
“Stayed on the phone with someone from Customer Service trouble shooting my computer for over an hour to find that I have to be responsible for fixing the computer at my expense because my warranty expired June of 2005, so I asked does this mean that when you replaced my harddrive before the warranty of the new harddrive became retroactive from the original date I pu”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘retroactive’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Open List: Totally -Retro-
A list of terms containing the string -retro-.
Please feel free to help me populate this list!
retrolingual, retroversion, retrocession, retrocessional, retrograde, retrorse, retroflexion, retroflection, retrogradation, retrocede, retrospect, retrospection and 149 more...
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January 2012
bloviate, pastiche, apparat, facile, paroxysm, pique, bedfellow, pedigree, tutelage, protege, protégé, retroactive and 196 more...
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Originventory
Beformitables; previousness, past-referents, and origins.
erstwhile, formication, quondam, atavistic, umquhile, yestreen, hesternal, hesternopothia, pridian, ere, retrophilia, ante mortem and 72 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1824 more...
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ymmez22's Words
despotic, fiefdom, demagogue, vignette, chavvy, esoteric, stalwarts, unpalatable, eradicated, rapacious, repugnant, zeitgeist and 89 more...
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Personal Vocabulary List
All my favourite words that I come across!
veritable, incongruence, rigamorole, letcherous, revolting, repulsive, reputrid, rapatious, forays, guise, placate, paradigm and 1162 more...
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newGRE
mostly from magoosh
imbue, verge on, nonchalant, deliberate, timorous, futile, provisional, dissect, checked, tinged, alluring, visionary and 1046 more...
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List Erine
cool mint antiseptic
shalom, cattywampus, bourgeoisie, aerophile, traverse, grotto, epicurean, ex cathedra, nautilus, epitaph, lathe, continuum and 753 more...
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The Last Werewolf
This novel by Glen Duncan, aside from being a ripping yarn and beautifully written, is just littered with words that I had to look up and discover that often his use of the word not only fitted per...
gurns, bok, chimney breast, dichotomy, Platonic form, filthy, Platonic Form, mathematics, BAM, skirls, clarity, blundering and 298 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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SAT PSAT ALPHABETICAL R
rabid, raconteur, rail, rambunctious, ramification, rampant, rancor, rancorous, range, rankle, ransack, rapacious and 112 more...
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Sat Vocabulary List
abandon, abash, abate, abjure, ablution, abnegate, abominable, aboriginal, abortive, abrade, abridge, abrogate and 2155 more...
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merfee's Words
supple, dichotomy, relish, rhapsody, pneumonoultramicr..., embrace, ishmael, ebullient, recalcitrant, elegy, char, lugubrious and 522 more...
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Adjectival Arcana
A roster of adjectives that infrequently surface in typical conversation and writing. Many are dredged from scientific or other technical jargon or sieved from examples of disused archaic forms.
unitegmic, acaulescent, reticuloendothelial, ingressive, uniate, acanthopterygian, ossific, epiphysial, perivisceral, acœlomatous, cestoid, acælomate and 7756 more...
Tweets
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