retardant
Americannoun
adjective
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of retardant
Explanation
A retardant is anything that prevents something from happening, or inhibits it from growing or spreading. Using a rust retardant on your car, for example, should help keep it from getting rusty. A fire or flame retardant is a type of chemical that stops fire from starting or spreading. Sometimes fire retardants are sprayed or dumped on a fire to put it out, like the foam fire retardant you might spray from a hand-held fire extinguisher onto a grease fire in a kitchen. Retardant comes from the verb retard, "make slow, or make slower."
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.
Its firefighting fleet also includes Dash 8 water-bombing planes, which can drop more than 2,600 gallons of water or fire retardant.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
Planes often fly in a continuous shuttle while retardant is laid along the edges of the fire and ground crews attack the flames directly.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
Sunshine Silver Mining & Refining, which also mines copper and antimony, a flame retardant mineral, could be a backdoor AI play given the demand for wiring in data centers.
From Barron's ● Jun. 2, 2026
If the cameras and heat sensors around the house detect danger, the system can envelop the home in over 1,000 gallons of fire retardant and hundreds of gallons of fire-suppressing foam.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 2, 2026
Her eyes were weeping from the fire retardant, and she barely got them open in time to see the tree branch in front of her.
From "Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
