SYNONYMS AND RELATED EXPRESSIONS
retrospect
noun
A view or consideration of past events.
Local English device voice, when available. This is not a recorded dictionary pronunciation.
Consideration of the past
Closest synonyms
Related words and expressions
These extend or explain the idea and may require a different sentence structure.
Usage distinction
Return to topRetrospect commonly appears in in retrospect. Hindsight adds knowledge gained after the event; recollection focuses on memory rather than evaluation.
RELATED FORMS, ONE FEATURED ENTRY
The retrospective family
retrospect is grouped under retrospective in the main dictionaries. This form keeps its meaning and previous study record.
retrospectiveadjective
Looking back on past events or work.
Looking back
Closest synonyms
Related expressions
The retrospective exhibition covered five decades of the painter's work.
The team's retrospective notes look back over earlier frame versions and explain which choices solved problems and which had to be replaced.
CHECK THE MEANING IN CONTEXT
See retrospect in use
In retrospect, the early warning was easier to recognize.
In retrospect, I probably should have taken the position.
1 more example
When readers asked what had gone wrong, the editor's first reply was an evasion: it discussed the bulletin's volunteer effort without answering the question about the copied sentence. She later issued a retraction that clearly withdrew the inaccurate account and supplied the correct proposal. In retrospect, she could see that a direct comparison with the original message would have exposed the mismatch.
Compare an alternative with the original word in each passage. Shared meanings do not make every pair interchangeable.
Synonym reference scope and sources
The groups distinguish the senses selected for this study entry. Closest synonyms and broader related expressions have separate labels. The listed sources support lexical selection; not every phrase is a direct quotation from a source.
How the synonym reference was prepared / WordNet 3.0 license