retarded
Americanverb
adjective
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Older Use: Usually Offensive. characterized by a slowness or limitation in intellectual understanding and awareness, emotional development, academic progress, etc.
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Slang: Disparaging and Offensive. stupid or foolish.
noun
adjective
Sensitive Note
In reference to low intellectual ability, the terms retarded, retardation, and mental retardation are now usually perceived as insulting and have largely been replaced by other terms. There are several acceptable alternatives. In general, someone with a mental, physical, or emotional disability may be described as developmentally disabled, or as a person with a developmental disability. If it is specifically a mental disability, the person may be described as cognitively impaired or intellectually disabled. Such a person may be referred to as an individual with a cognitive impairment or a person with an intellectual disability. The slang term retard is a term of abuse used especially by children, though much less commonly than in the past. In both of its meanings, retard is perceived as insulting to disabled people. See also cripple.
Other Word Forms
- nonretarded adjective
- unretarded adjective
Etymology
Origin of retarded
Explanation
Retarded is a word to describe someone who is mentally slow. This is a medical word that spread to slang, and is today considered very insulting and inappropriate. Some uses of retarded are harmless, like if you said wearing a backpack retarded or slowed down your progress on a hike. However, if you use retarded to mean stupid, you're on dangerous ground. Out of respect for people who have clinical mental retardation, this is considered an offensive term to throw around.
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.
It retarded the progress after the Civil War by invalidating the civil rights acts and its invalidation of parts of the Voting Rights Act was fairly typical.
From Washington Post • Aug. 16, 2022
Based on some of the results, the team thinks microbes retarded the growth of inbreds, rather than giving the hybrids a special boost.
From Science Magazine • Jul. 29, 2021
Supreme Court ruled that states may not execute “mentally retarded offenders.”
From Slate • May 22, 2020
Some users took note of Rosa’s Law, signed by President Barack Obama in 2010, which replaced the phrase “mentally retarded individual” in federal statues with “individual with an intellectual disability.”
From New York Times • Sep. 8, 2019
But we already saw in Chapter 10 that the north—south axes and ecological barriers within Africa and the Americas retarded the diffusion of crops and domestic animals.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
