retrograde step• In view of the benevolent rule of the communes this might seem to have been retrograde step.• Mr. Hurd I do not think that it would be a retrograde step.• The trade in live exports will begin again which is a major retrograde step.• To eliminate the possibility of this would seem to be a retrograde step.• The closure of the plant is a retrograde step, as that technology is very much needed.• The appointment of Valuev was not quite the retrograde step that some contemporaries thought it to be.• I was told this was a retrograde step: what I was advocating was narrownationalism in an age of increasing internationalism.