retreats

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of retreat.

   The company schedules its leadership retreats at a lodge in the mountains.

   Historians traced the army's hurried retreats across three separate campaigns.

   Note

   The plural turns pulling back into something you can count: separate military withdrawals, quiet places of privacy, or set periods of seclusion for prayer or study. Leadership retreats are scheduled events. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb. "The retreats" names things, while "she retreats" names an action. An obsolete euphemism once made a retreat a lavatory. That use is rare, and it is best left alone.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of retreat.

   The glacier retreats a little farther up the valley each warm summer.

   Whenever the debate turns personal, she retreats into careful silence.

   Note

   Every sense of the verb is intransitive, so retreats never takes a direct object. Prepositions carry the direction instead: an army retreats from a position, a person retreats into silence, a glacier retreats up a valley. The unhyphenated spelling occasionally stands in for re-treats, meaning "treats again". That is a separate word, so the hyphen is the safer choice when that meaning is intended.

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