flourish vs retrograde

flourish

verb
  • To prosper or fare well. 

  • To thrive or grow well. 

  • To make bold and sweeping, fanciful, or wanton movements, by way of ornament, parade, bravado, etc.; to play with fantastic and irregular motion. 

  • To make bold, sweeping movements with. 

  • To be in a period of greatest influence. 

  • To adorn with beautiful figures or rhetoric; to ornament with anything showy; to embellish. 

  • To use florid language; to indulge in rhetorical figures and lofty expressions. 

  • To execute an irregular or fanciful strain of music, by way of ornament or prelude. 

  • To make ornamental strokes with the pen; to write graceful, decorative figures. 

  • To develop; to make thrive; to expand. 

noun
  • A ceremonious passage such as a fanfare. 

  • An ornamentation. 

  • A dramatic gesture such as the waving of a flag. 

  • A decorative embellishment on a building. 

retrograde

verb
  • To retreat or withdraw from a position. 

  • To cause (a land feature such as a coastline or waterfall) to undergo retrogradation, that is, to travel in the direction of the land or upstream due to erosion. 

  • To revert to an inferior or less developed state; to decline, to regress. 

  • Of a celestial body, especially a planet: to show retrogradation; to seem to move across the sky in the opposite direction from its ordinary movement. 

  • Of a land feature: to travel in the direction of the land or upstream due to erosion. 

  • To change (minerals, rocks, etc.) metamorphically through a decrease in pressure or temperature. 

noun
  • The reversal of a melody so that what is played first in the original melody is played last, and what is played last in the original melody is played first. 

  • A movement backwards or opposite to the intended or normal motion. 

  • The apparent movement of a planet across the sky in the opposite direction from its ordinary movement. 

  • One who opposes social reform, favouring the maintenance of the status quo; a conservative. 

adv
  • In a reverse direction; backwards. 

adj
  • Reverting to an inferior or less developed state; declining, regressing. 

  • Having a passage of music played backwards. 

  • Of a celestial body: seeming to move across the sky in the opposite direction from its ordinary movement. 

  • Of the order of something: inverse, reverse. 

  • Of a celestial body orbiting another: in the opposite direction to the orbited body's spin. 

  • Of amnesia: relating to the period leading up to the episode which caused it. 

  • Of ideas or a person: opposing social reform, favouring the maintenance of the status quo; conservative. 

  • Directed or moving backwards in relation to the normal or previous direction of travel; retreating. 

  • Of an animal: appearing to regress to a less developed form during its lifetime. 

  • Of a metamorphic change: resulting from a decrease in pressure or temperature. 

How often have the words flourish and retrograde occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )