Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A review or contemplation of things in the past.
  • intransitive verb To think about the past.
  • intransitive verb To look back on or think about (things past).
  • idiom (in retrospect) In looking back on or reviewing the past.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of looking backward; contemplation or consideration of the past; hence, a review or survey of past events.
  • noun Hence That to which one looks back; the past; a past event or consideration.
  • To look back upon; consider retrospectively.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To look backward; hence, to affect or concern what is past.
  • noun A looking back on things past; view or contemplation of the past.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun consideration of past times
  • verb To look or refer back to; to reflect on

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb look back upon (a period of time, sequence of events); remember
  • noun contemplation of things past

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin *retrōspectus, past participle of retrōspicere, to look back at : retrō-, retro- + specere, to look at; see spek- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin retrōspectum, from retrōspicio ("to look back at").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word retrospect.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.