retract.
To pull (something) back or back inside.
Meaning & usage
To pull (something) back or back inside.
An airplane retracts its wheels for flight.
To pull (something) back or back inside. To draw (an extended body part) back into the body.
A cat can retract its claws.
To avert (one's eyes or a gaze).
To pronounce (a sound, especially a vowel) farther to the back of the vocal tract.
To hold back (something); to restrain.
To draw back; to draw up; to withdraw.
The bus was stuck at the stop as its wheelchair ramp wouldn’t retract after use.
Muscles retract after amputation.
Where this word comes from
From Late Middle English retracten, retract (“to absorb, draw in”), from Latin retractus (“withdrawn”), the perfect passive participle of Latin retrahō (“to draw or pull back, withdraw; to bring back; to compel to turn back; to recall; to get back, recover; to hold back, restrain, withhold; to remove, take away; to bring to light again; (Late Latin) to delay”), from re- (prefix meaning ‘again’) + trahō (“to drag, pull; to extract, withdraw”). Doublet of retreat.
An act of retracting or withdrawing (a mistake, a statement, etc.); a retraction.
A pulling back, especially (military) of an army or military troops; a pull-back, a retreat; also, a signal for this to be done.
A subgroup of a given group such that there is a surjective endomorphism from the ambient group to the subgroup which is constant on the subgroup; in this case the subgroup is a retract of the ambient group. In symbols: H in G is a retract of G if there exists a surjective homomorphism σ from G to H with σ|_H= operatorname id.
The target of a retraction.
Synonym of retreat (“an act of accidentally injuring a horse's foot by incorrectly nailing it during shoeing”).
Where this word comes from
Partly: * from retract (verb) (see etymology 1); and * from Late Latin retractus (“a pulling back, retreat; refuge”), from Latin retractus (“withdrawn”), the perfect passive participle of Latin retrahō (“to draw or pull back, withdraw; to bring back; to compel to turn back; to recall; to get back, recover; to hold back, restrain, withhold; to remove, take away; to bring to light again; (Late Latin) to delay”) (see etymology 1) + -tus (suffix forming action nouns from verbs). Doublet of retrait, retreat, and ritratto.
To cancel or take back (something, such as an edict or a favour or grant previously bestowed); to rescind, to revoke.
To break or fail to keep (a promise, etc.); to renege.
To take back or withdraw (something that has been said or written); to disavow, to repudiate.
I retract all the accusations I made about the senator and sincerely hope he won’t sue me.
Originally in chess and now in other games as well: to take back or undo (a move); specifically (card games) to take back or withdraw (a card which has been played).
To decline or fail to do something promised; to break one's word.
Of something said or written (such as published academic work): to take back or withdraw.
To change one's mind after declaring an intention to make a certain move.
Where this word comes from
From Middle French rétracter (“to annul; to reconsider; to withdraw”) (modern French rétracter (“to retract; to contract”)), and from its etymon Latin retractāre, the present active infinitive of retractō (“to retract, withdraw; to annul, revoke; to detract from; to undertake again; to reconsider; to remember; to decline, refuse”), from re- (prefix meaning ‘again’) + tractō (“to drag, haul, tug”) (from trahō (“to drag, pull; to extract, withdraw”) + -tō (frequentative suffix forming verbs)).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.