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; to prevent from progress; to render more slow in progress; to impede; to hinder; as, to retard the march of an army; to retard the motion of a ship; -- opposed to Ant: accelerate.

The act of retarding; hindrance; the act of delaying; as, the retardation of the motion of a ship; -- opposed to Ant: acceleration. The retardations of our fluent motion. De Quinsey.

Tending, or serving, to retard.

One who, or that which, retards.

The act of retarding; retardation. Cowley.

To cause to move faster; to quicken the motion of; to add to the speed of; -- opposed to retard.

as, a falling body moves toward the earth with an acceleration of velocity; -- opposed to retardation. A period of social improvement, or of intellectual advancement, contains within itself a principle of acceleration. I. Taylor. (Astr. & Physics.) Acceleration of the moon, the increase of the moon's mean motion in its…

A substance which prevents or retards putrefaction, or destroys, or protects from, putrefactive organisms; as, salt, carbolic acid, alcohol, cinchona.

To retard or make too late. Davenant.

A piece of mechanism for retarding or stopping motion by friction, as of a carriage or railway car, by the pressure of rubbers against the wheels, or of clogs or ratchets against the track or roadway, or of a pivoted lever against a wheel or drum in a machine.

senators. Macaulay. Broken ground. (a) (Mil.) Rough or uneven ground; as, the troops were retarded in their advance by broken ground. (b) Ground recently opened with the plow. -- Broken line (Geom.), the straight lines which join a number of given points taken in some specified order. -- Broken meat, fragments of mea…

int upon; to stop temporarily; to hinder; to repress; to curb. So many clogs to check and retard the headlong course of violence and oppression. Burke.

, honest, juridical principles and institutions of England are so many clogs to check and retard the headlong course of violence and opression. Burke.

embarrass; to trouble. Why asks he what avails him not in fight, And would but cumber and retard his flight Dryden. Martha was cumbered about much serving. Luke x. 40. Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground Luke xiii. 7. The multiplying variety of arguments, especially frivolous ones, . . . but cumbers the memory. Lo…

To lessen the velocity or momentum of; to retard; as, to deaden a ship's headway.

To retard; to stop, detain, or hinder, for a time; to retard the motion, or time of arrival, of; as, the mail is delayed by a heavy fall of snow. Thyrsis! whose artful strains have oft delayed The huddling brook to hear his madrigal. Milton.

To retard; to repel; to do damage to. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Anything towed in the water to retard a ship's progress, or to keep her head up to the wind; esp., a canvas bag with a hooped mouth, so used. See Drag sail (below).

To impede the motion or action of, as with a burden; to retard with something superfluous; to weigh down; to obstruct or embarrass; as, his movements were encumbered by his mantle; his mind is encumbered with useless learning. Not encumbered with any notable inconvenience. Hooker.

chinery to equalize the movement (opposing any sudden acceleration by its inertia and any retardation by its momentum), and to accumulate or give out energy for a variable or intermitting resistance. See Fly, n., 9. -- On the fly (Baseball), still in the air; -- said of a batted ball caught before touching the ground.…