rétrograder
\ʁe.tʁo.ɡʁa.de\
The verdict
“rétrograder” is uncommon French (frequency #56,906 among 5,742 “R” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #56,906
- frequency rank, French
- 5,742
- “R” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Retourner en arrière.
Corpus desk
Index FR-retrograder · rétrograder · French
rétrograder · rank #56,906 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #56,906
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,742
- PHOTO-FINISH résignée
Nearest frequency peer: résignée (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rangs de longue queue près de « rétrograder »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- réinstallé
réinstallé
43,099 corpus weight
- réprimant
réprimant
43,098 corpus weight
- réservera
réservera
43,097 corpus weight
- résignée
résignée
43,096 corpus weight
- rétrograder
rétrograder
43,095 corpus weight
- Sabina
Sabina
43,092 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « rétrograder » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | rétrograder |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \ʁe.tʁo.ɡʁa.de\ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Frequency rank | #56,906 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « rétrograder » en français
Rare enough to double-check
rétrograder is uncommon French at frequency #56,906 among 5,742 “R” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed \ʁe.tʁo.ɡʁa.de\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 5 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for rétrograder in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is rétrograder, spelled R-É-T-R-O-G-R-A-D-E-R.
Definition
- 1Retourner en arrière.
- 2Paraître aller en sens inverse des signes du zodiaque, en parlant des corps célestes.
- 3Passer à une vitesse inférieure.
- 4Perdre la progression antérieure, diminuer d'intensité.
- 5Affecter à un poste ou à un grade inférieur.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how rétrograder appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Il faut que notre histoire rétrograde de quelques pages, afin d’instruire le lecteur de certains faits importants.
Cette marche avait pour but de s'assurer si l'ennemi, signalé à Vouziers et à Grandpré, ne rétrogradait pas vers Stenay ou s'il continuait sa marche sur Paris.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "rétrograder", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 11 letters (nearest by frequency rank).