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At the end of the year, both introspection and retrospection are common. While introspection involves looking inward and taking stock of oneself, retrospection is all about recollecting and contemplating things that happened in the past. A look back at the history of the related adjective retrospective reveals that it retains a strong connection to its past; its Latin source is retrospicere, meaning “to look back at.” Retrospective can also be used as a noun referring to an exhibition that “looks back” at an artist’s work created over a span of years. Once you have retrospective and retrospection behind you, you can also add their kin retrospect and retro to your vocabulary, too.
Examples of retrospective in a Sentence
Leia Mendoza, Variety, 29 Oct. 2025
The retrospective marks one of the first major festival focuses devoted to Hamed’s work in Europe.
—Melanie Goodfellow, Deadline, 16 Oct. 2025
Ray Mark Rinaldi, Denver Post, 27 Oct. 2025
Though a hit back home, My Best Friend didn’t travel much beyond Greece and rarely shows up in retrospectives of the director’s work, like the one Lincoln Center put together back in 2019.
—A.a. Dowd, Vulture, 24 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for retrospective
Cite this Entry
“Retrospective.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retrospective. Accessed 4 Nov. 2025.
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retrospective
1 of 2 adjective
retrospective
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retrospective
adjective
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retrospective
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