retardation

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Italic *wre-

Latin re-

Latin tardus

Latin retardō

Proto-Indo-European *-tis

Proto-Indo-European *-Hō

Proto-Indo-European *-tiHō

Proto-Italic *-tiō

Latin -tiō

Latin retardātiōlbor.

English retardation

Learned borrowing from Latin retardātiō.

Pronunciation

• enPR: rē′tär-dā′shən
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌɹiː.tɑːˈdeɪ̯.ʃən/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˌɹi.tɑɹˈdeɪ̯.ʃən/
• (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˌɹiː.tɐːˈdæɪ̯.ʃən/
• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /ˌɹi.taɹˈde.ʃən/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən
• Hyphenation: re‧tar‧da‧tion

Noun

retardation (countable and uncountable, plural retardations)

1. The act of retarding or delaying; hindrance.

   Synonyms: delay, detention, hinderance, impediment

   1. (acoustics) The distance by which one wave is behind another.
   2. (music) The act of diminishing the rate of speed.
   3. (telegraphy) A decrease in the speed of telegraph signalling.
2. The extent to which anything is retarded; the result of any retarding or delay; mental, social, or physical slowness.
3. (psychology) Ellipsis of mental retardation.
   • 2014, The Eric Andre Show, season 3, episode 6, Eric Andre (actor):

     Me and my friends used to feed LSD to this little retarded girl in our neighborhood and we'd lock arms around her and go "nightmare! Nightmare! Nightmare! Nightmare! Nightmare! Nightmare! Nightmare! Nightmare!" It actually cured her retardation.

4. (colloquial, derogatory, offensive) Extreme stupidity.
5. That which retards; an obstacle; an obstruction.
6. (physics) Deceleration; reduction in the magnitude of velocity.
   • 1897, H. G. Wells, The Star‎^[1] (Science Fiction):

     It was on the first day of the new year that the announcement was made, almost simultaneously from three observatories, that the motion of the planet Neptune, the outermost of all the planets that wheel about the sun, had become very erratic. Ogilvy had already called attention to a suspected retardation in its velocity in December. Such a piece of news was scarcely calculated to interest a world the greater portion of whose inhabitants were unaware of the existence of the planet Neptune, nor outside the astronomical profession did the subsequent discovery of a faint remote speck of light in the region of the perturbed planet cause any very great excitement. Scientific people, however, found the intelligence remarkable enough, even before it became known that the new body was rapidly growing larger and brighter, that its motion was quite different from the orderly progress of the planets, and that the deflection of Neptune and its satellite was becoming now of an unprecedented kind.

   • 1960 April, “The braking of trains”, in Trains Illustrated, page 237:

     [...] the effect is automatically to select a braking force which is higher at above 40 m.p.h., in the initial stages of retardation, but is reduced as the speed falls below 40 m.p.h.

7. (music) A suspension which resolves upwards.

Derived terms

• alpha-thalassemia mental retardation syndrome
• autoretardation
• growth retardation
• mental retardation
• retardational

Related terms

• retard
• retardance
• retardant
• retardate
• retardative
• retarded
• retarder
• retardive

Translations

retarding; delaying

• Spanish: retardación (es) f

References

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin Eli Smith, editors (1895–1910), “retardation”, in The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “retardation”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Further reading

• “retardation”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

French

Etymology

From retarder (“to retard”, verb) +‎ -ation (“-ation”, nominal suffix).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʁə.taʁ.da.sjɔ̃/

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: re‧tar‧da‧tion

Noun

retardation f (plural retardations)

1. retardation

   (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)

Further reading

• “retardation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012