Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A review, survey, or contemplation of things in the past.
- v. To contemplate the past.
- v. To refer back.
- v. To look back on or contemplate (things past).
- idiom. in retrospect Looking backward or reviewing the past.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To look back upon; consider retrospectively.
- n. The act of looking backward; contemplation or consideration of the past; hence, a review or survey of past events.
- n. Hence That to which one looks back; the past; a past event or consideration.
Wiktionary
- n. consideration of past times
- v. To look or refer back to; to reflect on
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To look backward; hence, to affect or concern what is past.
- n. A looking back on things past; view or contemplation of the past.
WordNet 3.0
- v. look back upon (a period of time, sequence of events); remember.
- n. contemplation of things past
Etymologies
- Latin retrōspectum, from retrōspicio ("to look back at"). (Wiktionary)
- From Latin *retrōspectus, past participle of retrōspicere, to look back at : retrō-, retro- + specere, to look at; see spek- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Only in retrospect is he a 'predictable' threat - there are millions of similar people and they are harmless.”
Mental Health Institutions and Prisons, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“The amazing thing in retrospect is that he and all his siblings survived their maternity ward moments given that they must've been born like little lambs in a field for that price.”
Technocrats and Populists, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“Mr. BIANCULLI: Everything that he did, I think, in retrospect, is so incredibly noble, but you know, it was against the mainstream then.”
“In July 1965 the monarchy called for Papandreou's dismissal, causing widespread political chaos; a situation which paved the way to the colonels 'dictatorship (1967 – 74), an event which in retrospect is regarded by many Greeks as the last incarnation of the post – Civil War regime.”
Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity
“(The only thing I can figure, in retrospect, is that since my choices were upgrading from GoLive 6.0, GoLive CS, or GoLive CS2, the fact that I have CS2 Premium was the issue).”
“Nearly as clear, in retrospect, is that the Rockies had to win Game 2.”
“The first four sonnets set up a pattern (1221) which the fifth one royally shafts with its anomalous rhyme scheme of ABBA (that much was deliberate, though I wasn't even thinking that this rhyme scheme also reflects that 1221 pattern, which in retrospect is kinda cool).”
“One of the oddities, though I guess predictable in retrospect, is that my post "spanking employees" is by far and away my biggest Google draw.”
“The question in retrospect is whether Nixon could have shifted the focus to economic development without encouraging separatism, color-coding, and counting by race — as his policies did.”
“Thus, it dawned on us what in retrospect is quite obvious: that the neuronal mechanisms of learning and memory probably did not reside in the properties of the neurons themselves.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘retrospect’.
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GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 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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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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Shadowkeir's list
This list, the one shown below this very message, is a collection of words that you cannot begin to fathom how much I adore. The list will also feature atithesis and contrasting words such as the t...
wishful, anticlimactic, forte, monchromatic, septic, wonderous, isoclinal, deformed, disintergrate, favourite, laughable, awe-inspiring and 250 more...
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Words
Playa
schadenfreude, quixotic, serendipity, loquacious, ubiquitous, aforementioned, inherently, superfluous, dissonance, tersely, poignant, plethora and 108 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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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Barron's 1100 words you need to know ...
adamant, ardent, array, bereft, besmirch, constrict, culminate, egotist, exultation, falter, humility, invective and 8 more...
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Mnemosyne
Elicityscapes. Re-re-running; get, put.
"'Member dat?"
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."
-...linkage, peg, ceremony, memo, mnemosyne, mnemonic, memento, anchor, compose, draw, picture, imagine and 101 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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amy's GRE 2012
gimmicks, kowtow, unpretentious, skeptical, cynical, somber, prevaricate, equivocate, requisite, embellish, impregnable, procrastinate and 307 more...
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From Book - SAT & College Dictionary ...
ebb, exotic, immure, abeyance, panegyric, debonair, protege, dissipate, frantic, penitent, abject, edify and 871 more...
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amber words
amber words is the term I use for words that are all but fossilized, in the sense that their use is always in the context of a single expression. Examples include caboodle, dudgeon, umbrage
sanctum, akimbo, amok, riddance, druthers, trove, caboodle, immemorial, blithering, dudgeon, swaddling, askance and 110 more...
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Rita's List of Words
preliminary, rudimentary, stance, conduit, locale, implicit, vicissitude, empirical, repository, apophthegm, apothegm, invariable and 431 more...
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Sat Vocabulary List
abandon, abash, abate, abjure, ablution, abnegate, abominable, aboriginal, abortive, abrade, abridge, abrogate and 2155 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for retrospect.
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