What is "retarded depression"

n. a state of clinical depression in which the individual is lethargic and slow to initiate action

Retarded depression is a category of depression characterised by slow thinking and behaviour ( psychomotor retardation). It is contrasted with agitated depression (characterised by heightened psychomotor activity). Though some clinicians continue to use the term, as a diagnostic category of depression it has largely been displaced by those in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or the World Health Organisation ICD.