noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The firing of rockets directed opposite to a craft's direction of motion in order to slow down.

   "The spaceship needs to turn around so its retrofire rockets slow it down and put it in a lower orbit."

Verb

1. 1
   To fire rockets of a craft in the direction opposite to its direction of motion in order to slow down.

Example

More examples

"The spaceship needs to turn around so its retrofire rockets slow it down and put it in a lower orbit."

Etymology

From retro- + fire.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.