Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Bent, curved, or turned backward.
- adj. Pronounced with the tip of the tongue turned back against the roof of the mouth.
- n. A sound pronounced with the tongue in retroflex position, as the sound (r) in some varieties of English.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Same as reflexed.
- Same as retroflect.
Wiktionary
- adj. Bent or curved backwards.
- adj. phonetics : Of pronunciation in which the tip of the tongue is raised and bent backwards, so that the underside of the tongue is behind the alveolar ridge or touches the palate.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Reflexed; bent or turned abruptly backward.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. bent or curved backward
- adj. pronounced with the tip of the tongue turned back toward the hard palate
- v. articulate (a consonant) with the tongue curled back against the palate
- v. bend or turn backward
Etymologies
- From Latin rētrōflexus, the perfect participle of rētrōflectō ("bend, turn"), from flectō ("bend, turn"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin *retrōflexus, past participle of retrōflectere, to bend back : retrō, retro- + flectere, to bend. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The next seven consonants are 'retroflex': the tongue curls back to the palate (front part of the roof of the mouth), making a hard sound ṭh aspirated version of the above as in 'dry', but harder”
“Like alveolar consonants replaced by retroflex consonants e.g walked - walk.”
English as Intellectual Make Up for Indians « Articles « Literacy News
“The retroflex [r] and the clear [l] sound the same to the Japonese; i.e. rice and lice -- Yew!”
“The phonetic character of the /r/ is retroflex, i.e. the tip of the tongue is curled back towards the palate.”
“Also, I think that the retroflex quality is not the primary feature in rhoticity.”
“It might have been a trilled sound as in modern Scots, but from the descriptions at the time I think it's more likely to have been a retroflex one - that is, one where the tip of the tongue is curled back, as in a lot of American and West Country speech.”
“One is the refusal to use the IPA -- to the point that sometimes different transcriptions are used for different languages, so that an underdot can mean an ejective, a retroflex, a pharyngealized consonant and who knows what else.”
“They are not just meant to retroflex your knees, extend your legs, and make you callipygous.”
“The best American representation of Mandarin's retroflex zh, ch, sh would be jr, chr, shr.”
“I just wrote a paragraph in my term paper, regarding "interesting" observations concerning the interchangeable usage of the voiced alveolar trill and the voiced retroflex approximant in Yapese.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘retroflex’.
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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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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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capitalcreative's Words
deviltry, visceral, cassanova, assuage, genesis, hot minute, osmosis, wistful, sublime, loathe, farfetched, newfangled and 283 more...
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retro-
denoting backward or reciprocal action; denoting location behind
retrogression, retrosternal, retrogene, retrograde, retro, retroflex
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words
pointingstock, kibosh, turnspit, ant-bear, earthborn, pitter, infold, hayseed, stoker, prismatic, backcross, blizzard and 96 more...
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Dain's Words
rabble, terminus, archaic, atavism, demiurge, waylay, syzygy, jocoserious, quark, entropy, cinnabar, shamble and 912 more...
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New words, not to be confused with th...
maladroit, aphasia, delphinium, bromide, greenhorn, just deserts, loth, supplanted, steeplechase, steeple, annex, vestments and 236 more...
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gleaned words
found words, that haven't found their proper place yet.
juggernaut, panopticon, superfluous, verfremdung, aleatory, googlewhack, palimpsest, petrosomatoglyph, epibiont, solipsism, zugzwang, ubiquitous and 500 more...
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linguistics = sexy
inchoative, semblitive, transitivity, deixis, indexical, adjunct, predicate, approximant, ejective, epenthesis, monophthong, pharyngealisation and 41 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for retroflex.
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