Crossword clues for retract
retract
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Retract \Re*tract"\, v. i.
To draw back; to draw up; as, muscles retract after amputation.
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To take back what has been said; to withdraw a concession or a declaration.
She will, and she will not; she grants, denies, Consents, retracts, advances, and then files.
--Granville.
Retract \Re*tract"\ (r[-e]*tr[=a]kt"), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Retracted; p. pr. & vb. n. Retracting.] [F. r['e]tracter, L. retractare, retractatum, to handle again, reconsider, retract, fr. retrahere, retractum, to draw back. See Retreat.]
To draw back; to draw up or shorten; as, the cat can retract its claws; to retract a muscle.
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To withdraw; to recall; to disavow; to recant; to take back; as, to retract an accusation or an assertion.
I would as freely have retracted this charge of idolatry as I ever made it.
--Bp. Stillingfleet. -
To take back,, as a grant or favor previously bestowed; to revoke. [Obs.]
--Woodward.Syn: To recall; withdraw; rescind; revoke; unsay; disavow; recant; abjure; disown.
Retract \Re*tract"\, n. (Far.) The pricking of a horse's foot in nailing on a shoe.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
early 15c., "to draw (something) back," from Old French retracter (14c.) and directly from Latin retractus, past participle of retrahere "to draw back" (see retraction). Sense of "to revoke, recant, take back" is attested from 1540s, probably a back-formation from retraction. Related: Retracted; retracting.
Wiktionary
vb. 1 (context transitive English) To pull back inside. 2 (context ambitransitive English) To draw back; to draw up. 3 (context transitive English) To take back or withdraw something one has said. 4 To take back, as a grant or favour previously bestowed; to revoke.
WordNet
v. formally reject or disavow a formerly held belief, usually under pressure; "He retracted his earlier statements about his religion"; "She abjured her beliefs" [syn: abjure, recant, forswear, resile]
pull away from a source of disgust or fear [syn: shrink back]
use a surgical instrument to hold open (the edges of a wound or an organ) [syn: pull back, draw back]
pull inward or towards a center; "The pilot drew in the landing gear"; "The cat retracted his claws" [syn: draw in]
Wikipedia
In topology, a branch of mathematics, a retraction is a continuous mapping from a topological space into a subspace which preserves the position of all points in that subspace. A deformation retraction is a mapping which captures the idea of continuously shrinking a space into a subspace.
An absolute neighborhood retract (ANR) is a particularly well-behaved type of topological space. For example, every topological manifold is an ANR. Every ANR has the homotopy type of a very simple topological space, a CW complex.
In mathematics, in the field of group theory, a subgroup of a group is termed a retract if there is an endomorphism of the group that maps surjectively to the subgroup and is identity on the subgroup. In symbols, H is a retract of G if and only if there is an endomorphism σ : G → G such that σ(h) = h for all h ∈ H and σ(g) ∈ H for all g ∈ G.
The endomorphism itself (having this property) is an idempotent element in the transformation monoid of endomorphisms, so it called an idempotent endomorphism or a retraction.
The following is known about retracts:
- A subgroup is a retract if and only if it has a normal complement. The normal complement, specifically, is the kernel of the retraction.
- Every direct factor is a retract. Conversely, any retract which is a normal subgroup is a direct factor.
- Every retract has the congruence extension property.
- Every regular factor, and in particular, every free factor, is a retract.
Usage examples of "retract".
As the second wave came in, around 0857, amphtracs of the first were beginning to retract, passing through the second, third and fourth waves with expert helmsmanship.
The sun has burned away the mist, disclosing an almost solid mass of transports to seaward, beaches swarming with amphtracs and men, troops moving through cornfields toward the tableland, landing craft forming waves, earlier waves retracting.
Should the king, they said, be able by force of arms to prevail over the parliament of England, and reestablish his authority in that powerful kingdom, he will undoubtedly retract all those concessions which, with so many circumstances of violence and indignity, the Scots have extorted from him.
As soon as Manesh was airborne, he retracted the gear and lowered the nose, almost instantly feeling the pressure of the seat against his back when the sudden loss of drag allowed the craft to reach three hundred knots in a few more seconds.
The alternatives were retracting their steps, or making a northward detour towards the sea, back into a terrain of sandy soil and marram grass.
At the last moment, when repentance did not avail, Derwentwater retracted the declarations of loyalty he had made at his trial, and died protesting his unswerving fidelity to the House of Stuart.
Doing as directed, the quarrier retracted its scoop and waved an immense grab in the air.
Doing as directed, the quarrier retracted its scoop and heaved an immense grab in the air.
It enclosed him more firmly and retracted the foreskin, again lofting the organ for inspection.
When finished the arms retracted into the sides of the machines, which now presented appearances smooth as the armed retriever, though silver in colour instead of copper.
It plucked the clip from the human hand before the man could react and retracted, clip and all, within the cylindrical interior.
But then, just as he retracted his other confessions, so he retracted the confession that he had killed his wife Rena.
Also, although he was to change his version of the events surrounding the deaths of his victims, he never once retracted his explanation that he had met Lucy Partington before the night she disappeared in December 1973.
Square not found human remains that afternoon, Frederick West would certainly have retracted his first confession completely, and may even have walked out of Gloucester police station a free man once again.
Even when he privately retracted his initial confessions, telling Howard Ogden that she had been responsible, he then changed his mind again, wrapping himself once more in his own inner narrative of their love-story.