retronym

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
The term Rāja Yoga is a retronym, introduced in the 15th-century Hatha Yoga Pradipika to distinguish the school based on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali from the more current school of Hatha Yoga expounded by Swami Swatmarama.

View all »
Definitions (2)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. noun A word or phrase created because an existing term that was once used alone needs to be distinguished from a term referring to a new development, as acoustic guitar in contrast to electric guitar or analog watch in contrast to digital watch.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

Examples (3)

  • The term Rāja Yoga is a retronym, introduced in the 15th-century Hatha Yoga Pradipika to distinguish the school based on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali from the more current school of Hatha Yoga expounded by Swami Swatmarama. —  Yahoo! Answers: Latest Questions
  • The current term for this sort of thing is retronym. —  RPGamer
  • With the popularity of women’s slacks, a retronym was coined: the pants suit, to differentiate from the skirted suit.
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 61 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
by American Heritage

Charts

We are still working on calculating this word's frequency.

Recently looked up

strafe · solus · proclivity · show-stopper · amphora

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

procrastinate · its not like im ugly people tell me im pretty · be careful! the razor is razor-sharp! · minty-fresh death threat · please stop sucking the monkeybread