Retard
noun, verb, slang ·2 syllables ·Very common ·Middle school level
Definitions
- 1 A retardation; a delay.
- 2 a person of subnormal intelligence wordnet
- 3 A slowing down of the tempo; a ritardando.
- 4 A person with mental retardation. dated, offensive
"The retard in our class needs special help."
- 5 A person or being who is extremely stupid or slow to learn. informal, offensive
"“That's 'cause your dog is a retard,” the large woman retorted. The pit bull must have sensed the insult because it got up on all fours and started barking at the woman. Not one to back down from an interspecies fight, the prison lady stood up […]"
- 1 To keep delaying; to continue to hinder; to prevent from progressing. transitive
"retard the march of an army"
- 2 cause to move more slowly or operate at a slower rate wordnet
- 3 To put off; to postpone. transitive
"to retard the attacks of old age"
- 4 lose velocity; move more slowly wordnet
- 5 To be slow or dilatory to perform (something). obsolete, transitive
Show 4 more definitions
- 6 slow the growth or development of wordnet
- 7 To decelerate; to slow down. intransitive
"70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, retard, retard..."
- 8 be delayed wordnet
- 9 To stay back. intransitive, obsolete
"Some years it [The River Nile] hath also retarded, and come far later than usually it was expected"
Example
More examples"Normally, a guy who reads light novels despite not being a kid anymore is a retard, don't you think?"
Etymology
From Middle English retarden, from Anglo-Norman or Latin, from Anglo-Norman retarder, from Latin retardāre (“to retard”), from re- + tardus (“slow”).
Related phrases
More for "retard"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.