retrograde

Until, that is, the play’s rather retrograde climax, when the playwright’s provocateur wildness goes limp.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026

In the minds of some retrograde dweebs, representing these baddies with a woman who could play Barbie was sacrilege.

From Salon ● May 5, 2026

The dreamy vistas of domestic arts, which may have once seemed frivolous, passé, even politically retrograde for some, become a source of deep allure for people of different political stripes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 4, 2025

Cubism was not only dominant in 1921, when Keck made his stylistically retrograde statue, but its genesis owes much to African art.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2025

In that letter Jefferson had mentioned Adams in passing as a retrograde thinker opposed to all forms of progress, one of the “ancients” rather than “moderns.”

From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis

Sometimes it is said that the high retrogrades, or backs off to the west, allowing the storm track to come down the coast.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 3, 2021

Known in our dancers’ nomenclature as “The King and Queen,” it is built primarily on one basic theme with its inversions, reversals and retrogrades.

From New York Times ● Sep. 8, 2015

He could goad the traditionalists beneath him, promote the "new thinkers," purge the retrogrades, and keep an eye out for obstructionism, sabotage, insurgency.

From Time Magazine Archive

Or he might be overthrown and replaced by retrogrades who would have at their disposal the military wherewithal to engage once again in old thinking and old behavior.

From Time Magazine Archive

The human mind is never stationary; it advances or it retrogrades: having reached its meridian point, when the hour of perfection has gone by, it must verge to its decline.

From Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 2 by Disraeli, Isaac

Fu ture productions which fail to measure up to its stiff standards of achievement may be considered to have retrograded.

From Time Magazine Archive

After the abandonment of his works it was a long time before the enemy knew he had retrograded.

From A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital by Jones, John Beauchamp

Now I ask you candidly, have we retrograded in matters of taste or become less loyal to the true spirit of our Republican institutions?

From As I Remember Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century by Gouverneur, Marian

But in the seventh and eighth centuries they again declined, and learning retrograded very much; literature was forgotten; the monks and friars boasted of their ignorance.

From History of Human Society by Blackmar, Frank W. (Frank Wilson)

Nor is a change of views necessarily a reproach to a politician, even though he may have retrograded or gone wrong.

From Modern Leaders: Being a Series of Biographical Sketches by McCarthy, Justin

“Similar retrograding blocks in the past have been associated with periods of colder and wintry weather in the Eastern U.S.,” meteorologist John Homenuk wrote on Twitter.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 29, 2022

The four boys were looking for possible routes of escape when Red’s brother decided that in arbitration lay his salvation from this swiftly retrograding dilemma.

From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy

I am very glad this happened to you instead of an uneventful summer on the farm and retrograding, I am afraid.

From Helen Grant's Schooldays by Douglas, Amanda M.

Criticism retrograded in his hands; yet, in retrograding, it took up a strong position: the influence of such a teacher was not untimely when facile sympathies required the guidance or the check of a director.

From A History of French Literature Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. by Gosse, Edmund

Now dreaming of universal empire, and retrograding toward the era of feudal barbarism, Napoleon attached foreign duchy after foreign duchy as fiefs to his throne.

From The Sword of Honor, volumes 1 & 2 or The Foundation of the French Republic, A Tale of The French Revolution by Sue, Eug?ne