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retract

Short definition from Wiktionary

Verb

  1. To pull (something) back or back inside.
  2. To pull (something) back or back inside: To draw (an extended body part) back into the body.
  3. To avert (one's eyes or a gaze).
  4. To pronounce (a sound, especially a vowel) farther to the back of the vocal tract.
  5. To hold back (something); to restrain.
  6. To draw back; to draw up; to withdraw.
  7. To cancel or take back (something, such as an edict or a favour or grant previously bestowed); to rescind, to revoke.
  8. To break or fail to keep (a promise, etc.); to renege.
  9. To take back or withdraw (something that has been said or written); to disavow, to repudiate.
  10. Originally in chess and now in other games as well: to take back or undo (a move); specifically (card games) to take back or withdraw (a card which has been played).
  11. To decline or fail to do something promised; to break one's word.
  12. Of something said or written (such as published academic work): to take back or withdraw.
  13. To change one's mind after declaring an intention to make a certain move.

Noun

  1. An act of retracting or withdrawing (a mistake, a statement, etc.); a retraction.
  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.
  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.
  4. The target of a retraction.
  5. Synonym of retreat (“an act of accidentally injuring a horse's foot by incorrectly nailing it during shoeing”).

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