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[-] Arcadeep@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago

It is still used to refer to things like fire retardant. To retard (pronounced ruh-tard and not ree-tard) means to slow or restrict the progress of something such as spoilage or fire spreading and is still a word with ligitimate uses, with the outdated 'medical' usage being a reference to a mentally disabled person's slower mental progress.

this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026
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