Meaning of retract | Babel Free

Definitions

1. An act of retracting or withdrawing (a mistake, a statement, etc.); a retraction.
   obsolete
2. A pulling back, especially (military) of an army or military troops; a pull-back, a retreat; also, a signal for this to be done.
   obsolete
3. 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.
   obsolete
4. The target of a retraction.
   obsolete
5. Synonym of retreat (“an act of accidentally injuring a horse's foot by incorrectly nailing it during shoeing”).
   obsolete

Equivalents

Examples

“[T]hey began to finde fault with Poeſie, […] ſaying, that metaphors æmigmaticall, and covert words, yea and the ambiguities which Poetry uſeth, were but ſhifts, retracts, and evaſions to hide and cover all, whenſoever the events fell not out accordingly.”

“Theſe Græcians alſo that made the retract, aduiſed Darius [III] to retire his Armie into the plaine of Meſopotamia, to the end that Alexander being entred into thoſe large fields and great Champions, he might haue inuironed the Macedonians on all ſides with his multitude; […]”

CEFR level