1776 J. Lee Introd. Bot. (ed. 3) Explan. Terms 381 Retroflexi, retroflex, bending backward and forward towards the Trunk.

1793 T. Martyn Lang. Bot. sig. Q5^v Retroflexus, retroflex... Bending this way and that, in different directions, usually in a distorted manner.

1837 W. Herbert Amaryllidaceæ 123 A Dioscorea..has 13 strong longitudinal veins, and the cross veins confluent, a little oblique, branching in various directions, some retroflex.

1888 Chicago Med. Jrnl. & Examiner Apr. 214/2 I have been in the habit, for a long time, of introducing an ordinary straight, hard-rubber intrauterine stem into the retroflex uterus before replacing it.

1906 Jrnl. Chem. Soc. 89 1016 The large curvature of the retroflex portions of the lower curve indicates that the compound is almost entirely dissociated in the solution.

1940 E. R. Spencer Just Weeds 100 The pigweed is the unfading plant with retroflex leaves.

1986 G. Culverwell tr. P. Arduini & G. Teruzzi Macdonald Encycl. Fossils Entry 81 The aperture is oval with a narrow, abapically retroflex sinus.

1915 G. Noël-Armfield Gen. Phonetics xvii. 99 Indian grammarians class these consonants as cerebrals. The name for them in the terminology of phonetics is retroflex or cacuminal.

1918 D. Jones in Internat. Rev. Missions 7 205 I was able in one lesson to teach a student to make all the Urdu dental and retroflex (‘cerebral’) consonants correctly.

1942 Amer. Speech: Reprints & Monogr. No. 4. 41 This sound is generally clearly retroflex in the Great Smokies, as in most American speech. It is heard in such words as the following: Birch, bird, birth, Burchfield, burn.

1998 A. Dalby Dict. Langs. 41/1 Features that almost all other Indian languages share—notably the retroflex consonants made by curling the tongue backwards towards the palate.

1868 Lancet 24 Oct. 543/2 If the cervix were rigid from inflammation, it was mechanically retroflexed, and thrust towards the sacrum.

1877 Trans. Med. Soc. N.Y. 111 The cure of the anteflexion is essayed by means of straightening or retroflexing the organ at the same time with the dilation.

1885 Med. & Surg. Reporter 52 736/2 A palmar splint for treating fracture of the forearm or wrist, having a suitable brachial surface retroflexed beyond the flexors of the thumb and bent downward at or near the middle joint of the digital phalanges.

1954 S. Duke-Elder Parsons' Dis. Eye (ed. 12) xxiii. 405 A large corneal section is made as for cataract.., the cornea retroflexed by traction on the suture, and a triangular piece of iris more deliberately excised.

1979 Amer. Jrnl. Surg. 137 49/1 A U turn maneuver was then performed, retroflexing the tip of the scope and sliding it along the lesser curvature up into the fundus.

2009 Gastrointestinal Endoscopy 69 962/1 Resistance to retroflexing the colonoscope was encountered initially.

1894 W. B. Headley Evol. Dis. Women xi. 158 The body [of the uterus] retroverts or retroflexes, the degree being determined by the size of the tumour which is behind it.

1908 Lancet-Clinic (Cincinnati) 30 May 641/1 In a few cases a floating spleen, a horseshoe kidney, or a dilated or prolapsed stomach has caused the uterus to retroflex.

1986 Jrnl. Archaeol. Sci. 13 460 The crack either retroflexes in the direction from which it has come,..or inflexes to form a shallow extension on the flake scar.

1993 S. J. Ettinger Pocket Compan. Textbk. Vet. Internal Med. p. xcii Occasionally, the bladder or prostate retroflexes into the hernia creating acute urethral obstruction, uremia, hyperkalemia, and the potential for strangulation of the bladder.

2003 Jrnl. Human Evol. 45 265/2 Their study also revealed that the midline cranial base retroflexes with increases of relative endocranial size.

1898 H. C. Porter tr. E. Strasburger et al. Text-bk. Bot. 396 The male branches give rise..to spherical stalked antheridia, which open at the apices by means of retroflexing valves.

1993 S. B. Steever Anal. to Synthesis 47 Similarly, the retroflexing consonants descend from earlier retroflex consonants.