Nearby Words

Retcon

Computing Dictionary

retcon definition


/ret'kon/ retroactive continuity.
The common situation in fiction where a new story "reveals" things about events in previous stories, usually leaving the "facts" the same (thus preserving continuity) while completely changing their interpretation. For example, revealing that a whole season of "Dallas" was a dream was a retcon.
This term was once thought to have originated on the Usenet newsgroup news:rec.arts.comics but is now believed to have been used earlier in comic fandom.
[Jargon File]
(1994-12-08)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © Denis Howe 2010 http://foldoc.org
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Retcon is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.
American Heritage
Abbreviations & Acronyms
retcon
retroactive continuity
The American Heritage® Abbreviations Dictionary, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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