retiring

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of retire.

   Many soldiers retiring from active service struggle to adjust to civilian life.

   The senator announced she is retiring rather than seeking another term.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every sense of retire, so whether it takes an object tells you which one is meant. With none, people are retiring from work or sport. With an object, something is being withdrawn: retiring a product line, retiring bonds from circulation, retiring an officer to the retired list. Before a noun, as in retiring co-workers, it means about to leave, and "she is retiring" usually announces a planned departure.

2. 2
   adjective

   Inclined to avoid company; shy and fond of privacy and seclusion.

   The author was famously retiring, granting almost no interviews during her long career.

   A retiring man by temperament, he preferred the workshop to any crowd.

   Similarshy, reserved, reticent, private, diffident

   Oppositeoutgoing, sociable, extroverted, gregarious

   Note

   The withdrawal here is from company rather than from work, which is why the word pairs so readily with shy: "shy and retiring" is the familiar doublet. It describes temperament, as when Theodore Dreiser writes of "Jennie's retiring soul" in Jennie Gerhardt (1911). Before a noun it can be ambiguous. A retiring colleague may be quiet or simply leaving, as with the participle of retire, so context decides.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The act or state of withdrawing from one's working life or official position.

   His retiring came as a relief to colleagues who had urged it for years.

   The committee discussed her retiring and how best to fill the vacancy.

   Similarretirement, departure

   Note

   A noun that has mostly given way to retirement, which is the word to reach for in ordinary prose. It survives where a gerund feel is wanted, as in "her retiring came as a relief". It once took a plural: Francis Bacon's Apophthegmes New and Old (1625) speaks of "those his retirings", meaning spells of withdrawing to his chamber on a plea of sickness.

Showing meanings only. Show all 3