prograde
Scientific-
Having a rotational or orbital movement that is the same as most bodies within a celestial system. In our solar system, prograde movement for both rotating and orbiting bodies is in a counterclockwise direction when viewed from a vantage point above the Earth's north pole.
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Compare retrograde
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
We call this “apparent prograde motion,” meaning forward motion.
From Scientific American
Most fundamentally, the change from prograde to retrograde motion is an illusion born of our orbital perspective.
From Scientific American
When, on the far side of its orbit and in the midst of its prograde cycle, Mercury passes behind the sun, the planet soon appears as an evening star—a lovely if somewhat dim point of light in the western twilight sky after sunset.
From Scientific American
Scientists wondered what they were and noticed that sometimes the wanderers move in the same direction as the sun—in “prograde” motion—then come to a stop and reverse direction to move in “retrograde.”
From Scientific American
After a while they reach another stationary point and resume prograde motion again.
From Scientific American
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.