retrieve

USri-TREEV/ɹɪˈtɹiːv/

Verbretrieves, retrieving, retrieved

Noun pluralretrieves

15 meanings of retrieve

Practice

1
verbtransitive
To regain or get back something that was lost or taken away.
The lawyer worked for years to retrieve the property seized during the war.
He finally retrieved the deposit the landlord had withheld.
Similarrecover, regain, reclaim, recoup
Oppositelose
Note
The core sense lies closest to the word's origin. Old French retrover meant "to find again", from re- "again" and trover "to find". It takes almost any object: a thrown ball, one's character, one's independence. In Dryden's translation of Virgil (1697), the dead wish to retrieve the bodies they forsook. The spelling only settled into its modern form around 1650, after earlier retreve and retrive.
2
verbtransitive
To fetch and carry back something, especially a file or data record stored on a computer.
The clerk went to retrieve the missing paperwork from the back room.
The app retrieved her order history in less than a second.
Similarfetch, get, collect
Note
Computing has made this the everyday sense: a program retrieves a file, a record or a backup from storage when asked for it. The older idea of carrying something back still runs underneath, and it could once be figurative. Berkeley, writing to Pope in 1714, hoped "to retrieve them from their cold, trivial conceits." In technical prose the natural objects are stored things: data, files, records.
3
verbtransitive
To call a piece of information back to mind from memory.
Under pressure, she could not retrieve the password she used every day.
The smell of bread retrieved a childhood scene she had long forgotten.
Similarrecall, remember
Oppositeforget
4
verbtransitive
To rescue an animal or other living creature from danger.
Rescuers waded into the canal to retrieve the trapped fawn.
The crew retrieved a stranded seal pup from the rising tide.
Similarrescue, save
5
verbtransitive
To salvage something from loss, waste, or destruction.
Divers worked for weeks to retrieve the cargo from the sunken ship.
She retrieved the only readable pages from the charred notebook.
Similarsalvage, recover, rescue, save
6
verbtransitive
To fetch and bring back game that a hunter has shot or brought down.
He trained the pup to retrieve quail without crushing them.
Across the marsh, the spaniel retrieved the downed mallard without a scratch.
Similarfetch
7
verbtransitive
To remedy or rectify something, such as an error or a damaged situation.
Quick thinking helped her retrieve a presentation that had started to fall apart.
Nothing the coach tried could retrieve the team's collapsing season.
Similarsalvage, rescue, save, redeem
8
verbintransitive
To fetch and bring in shot game systematically, as a working dog is trained to do.
Some breeds retrieve eagerly, while others lose interest after a few attempts.
She rewarded the dog every time it returned ready to retrieve again.
Similarfetch
Note
Without an object, the verb names a job rather than a single fetch. A dog that retrieves does it as trained, repeated work, and the breed name retriever comes straight from this use. It contrasts with the transitive hunting sense, where a particular bird is the object, and with the playful version, where the thing fetched is a stick or a ball.
9
verbintransitive
To fetch and carry back a thrown object systematically, notably as part of a game.
The collie would happily retrieve all afternoon if you let it.
Most setters love to retrieve, racing back the moment the stick lands.
Similarfetch
10
verbtransitive
To make a difficult but successful return of the ball in a racket sport.
She somehow managed to retrieve the cross-court winner and stay in the rally.
He retrieved a ball that everyone in the stands had given up on.
Similarreturn
Note
In sport the verb praises effort: a player retrieves a ball only when reaching it looked unlikely, so a routine return does not qualify. It belongs to racket games such as tennis and squash, where a retrieve keeps the rally alive. The object is the opponent's shot itself, as in retrieving a cross-court winner, and the noun names the shot that results.
11
nouncountable
An act or instance of getting something back; a retrieval.
A quick retrieve of the backup file saved the whole project.
The careful retrieve of the sunken anchor took the crew most of the morning.
Similarrecovery
12
nouncountable
A successful return of a difficult ball in a racket sport.
Her diving retrieve in the final set drew gasps from the gallery.
One spectacular retrieve shifted the whole momentum of the match.
Similarreturn
Note
As a noun it is countable (one retrieve, several retrieves), and it is always a compliment, never used of an ordinary return. It readily takes adjectives of effort or spectacle, such as a diving or desperate retrieve. The noun names the single moment, while the racket-sport verb names the action that produced it.

Less common meanings

13
verbobsolete
To remedy the harmful consequences of a loss or damage.
Accept my sorrow, and retrieve my fall.
1718, Mat[thew] Prior, “Solomon on the Vanity of the World. A Poem in Three Books.”
Note
Here the object is the harm, not the thing harmed: you retrieved a loss, a fall or a ruin by making it good. Matthew Prior's Solomon (1718) pleads "retrieve my fall," and Burke's Letters on a Regicide Peace finds "much to be retrieved." The sense is obsolete. In modern prose, repair or make good does this work, and the "rectify" sense covers mistakes and failing situations.
14
nounobsolete
The recovery of game that has once been flushed or startled into flight.
we'll bring Wax to the retrieve
1625, Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Staple of Newes.
Note
An old hunting term for a second chase. Game once sprung from cover and then lost had to be found again, and that renewed finding was the retrieve. Ben Jonson's The Staple of Newes (1625) turns it on a person: "we'll bring Wax to the retrieve." The noun is obsolete, and the living hunting word is the gun dog's verb.
15
nounobsolete
A fresh seeking out of something; a discovery.
Note
The noun at its most literal, still close to the French "find again" behind the "get back" sense. A retrieve was a search renewed, and by extension whatever that search turned up. It is obsolete, and a modern reader would likely take it to mean a fetch. Rediscovery or recovery does the job today.

Practice

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Origin

Recorded in Middle English around 1410 as retreve, from Old French retrover ("to find again", modern retrouver), formed from re- ("again") plus trover ("to find"), probably from Vulgar Latin *tropāre ("to compose").