Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To get back; regain.
- v. To rescue or save.
- v. Sports To make a difficult but successful return of (a ball or shuttlecock, as in tennis or badminton).
- v. To bring back again; revive or restore.
- v. To rectify the unfavorable consequences of; remedy. See Synonyms at recover.
- v. To recall to mind; remember.
- v. To find and carry back; fetch.
- v. To find and bring back game: a dog trained to retrieve.
- n. The act of retrieving; retrieval.
- n. Sports A difficult but successful return of a ball or shuttlecock.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To find again; discover again; recover; regain.
- Specifically, in hunting, to search for and fetch: as, a dog retrieves killed or wounded birds or other game to the sportsman.
- To bring back to a state of well-being, prosperity, or success; restore; reëstablish: as, to retrieve one's credit.
- To make amends for; repair; better; ameliorate.
- To find, recover, or restore anything; specifically, in sporting, to seek and bring killed or wounded game: as, the dog retrieves well.
- n. A seeking again; a discovery; a recovery; specifically, in hunting, the recovery of game once sprung.
Wiktionary
- v. To regain or get back something.
- v. To rescue (a) creature(s)
- v. To salvage something
- v. To remedy or rectify something.
- v. To remember or recall something.
- v. To fetch or carry back something.
- v. To fetch and bring in game.
- v. To fetch and bring in game systematically.
- v. To fetch or carry back systematically, notably as a game.
- v. To make a difficult but successful return of the ball.
- n. A retrieval
- n. The return of a difficult ball
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To find again; to recover; to regain; to restore from loss or injury.
- v. To recall; to bring back.
- v. To remedy the evil consequence of, to repair, as a loss or damadge.
- v. To discover and bring in game that has been killed or wounded.
- n. A seeking again; a discovery.
- n. The recovery of game once sprung; -- an old sporting term.
WordNet 3.0
- v. get or find back; recover the use of
- v. go for and bring back
- v. recall knowledge from memory; have a recollection
- v. run after, pick up, and bring to the master
Etymologies
- Middle English retreven, from Old French retrover, retruev- : re-, re- + trover, to find; see trover.
Examples
“I find that a slow, steady retrieve is more productive.”
“It's funny, there are things I can retrieve from the writing process and things that I can't.”
A conversation with Ann Packer, author of The Dive from Clausen's Pier
“And a good retrieve is like the cherry on top of the sunday.”
““There have been some large legal costs built up in the last week which I hope to retrieve from the Figes family,” Rachel Polonsky tells the paper.”
“I do not use treats for retrieves for 90% of the dogs as the retrieve is reward enough for hard charging gun dogs.”
“Finding a bird and Making a difficult retrieve is what the best dogs do as a matter of course, and it occurs as a matter of course and is unworthy of comment.”
“Enter the Tree Descender, a safety rope that you can retrieve from a pocket and loop around the tree trunk.”
“Actually, the Daredevle spoon rotates 360 degrees instead of the "wobble" effect as the Cleo, or the Darting action of the Kast Master, so a steady retrieve is a better presentation for this lure!”
“I quote these reports extensively to retrieve from the historical record some sense of the terrible destruction wrought by the police in the townships.”
'I Saw a Nightmare …' Doing Violence to Memory: The Soweto Uprising, June 16, 1976
“I know it’s Moscow, but this video of Gilbert Becaud’s Natalie, recalled a very short story I wrote several years ago, which I here retrieve from a previous post:”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘retrieve’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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*e?e
Words whose last and third-to-last letters are both "e".
here, eke, were, complete, mete, replete, adhere, where, mere, sphere, austere, aesthete and 98 more...
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fancy essay words
hiatus, ontology, exegesis, hermeneutics, dialectics, demiurge, ascertain, contention, eschatological, synecdoche, centripetal, centrifugal and 86 more...

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