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Bent backward angularly, as if half-broken; as, a refracted stem or leaf.

Looking behind; looking backward watchfully. [He] turns thither his regardant eye. Southey.

Folded over or backward; folded back upon itself; as, a replicate leaf or petal; a replicate margin of a shell.

A backward stroke. [Obs.]

Restraint of freedom in words or actions; backwardness; caution in personal behavior. My soul, surprised, and from her sex disjoined, Left all reserve, and all the sex, behind. Prior. The clergyman's shy and sensitive reserve had balked this scheme. Hawthorne.

Restrained from freedom in words or actions; backward, or cautious, in communicating one's thoughts and feelings; not free or frank. To all obliging, yet reserved to all. Walsh. Nothing reserved or sullen was to see. Dryden. -- Re*serv"ed*ly (r, adv. -- Re*serv"ed*ness, n.

To force back against the current; as, to restem their backward course. Shak.

A prefix or combining form signifying backward, back; as, retroact, to act backward; retrospect, a looking back.

To act backward, or in return; to act in opposition; to be retrospective.

Action returned, or action backward.

Copulating backward, or from behind.

Reflexed; bent or turned abruptly backward.

The act of retrograding, or moving backward.

Apparently moving backward, and contrary to the succession of the signs, that is, from east to west, as a planet. Hutton. And if he be in the west side in that condition, then is he retrograde. Chaucer.

The act of retrograding, or going backward; retrogradation.

Tending to retrograde; going or moving backward; declining from a better to a worse state.

Organized so as to discharge the urine backward. -- n. (Zoöl.)

Bent backward or downward. -- Re*trorse"ly, adv.

To look backward; hence, to affect or concern what is past. It may be useful to retrospect to an early period. A. Hamilton.

Looking backward; contemplating things past; -- opposed to prospective; as, a retrospective view. The sage, with retrospective eye. Pope.