retinal
/ˈɹɛt.ən.əl/adjective, noun
retinal is an adjective meaning “Of or pertaining to the retina” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled R-E-T-I-N-A-L and has 3 syllables, and it appears 1.3 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does retinal mean?
adjective
- 1
Of or pertaining to the retina.
noun
- 1
A yellow to orange aldehyde derived from vitamin A that is formed from rhodopsin by the action of light and in combination with proteins forms the visual pigments of the retinal rods and cones.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce retinal?
- UK /ˈɹɛt.ɪn.əl/
- US /ˈɹɛt.ən.əl/
- US /ˈɹɛt.nəl/
As a noun (“A yellow to orange aldehyde derived from vitamin A that is…”): /ˈɹɛt.əˌnæl/, /ˈɹɛt.əˌnɔl/.
Retinal has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-retinal.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of retinal
- retinals plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is retinal?
Retinal appears 1.3 times per million words in written English, the 24,463rd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Retinal in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense of or pertaining to the retina:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does retinal come from?
From retina + -al (“of or pertaining to”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).