retract

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