retrograde amnesia

American  

noun

1. a memory disorder characterized by an inability to remember events or experiences that occurred before a significant point in time.

---

retrograde amnesia British  

noun

1. amnesia caused by a trauma such as concussion, in which the memory loss relates to material learnt before the trauma Compare anterograde amnesia

---

Etymology

Origin of retrograde amnesia

First recorded in 1930–35

Example Sentences

Weronika had suffered a rare complication - unusual retrograde amnesia.

From BBC • Feb. 25, 2025

He woke up in a cloud — he felt as if he had been “dropped cold, empty, neutral, cleansed,” as he later put it — with retrograde amnesia.

From Washington Post • Nov. 2, 2021

“There are many alternative explanations for these correlations—say, retrograde amnesia, in which the forgetting is due to a brain injury.”

From Scientific American • Apr. 6, 2021

The first, retrograde amnesia, was for events that occurred before my brain injury.

From The Guardian • Oct. 5, 2017

Psychiatrists explain the case as follows: The thing here involved is retrograde amnesia.

From Criminal Psychology; a manual for judges, practitioners, and students by Gross, Hans Gustav Adolf