retrieving

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of retrieve.

   Retrieving the lost data took the technician several hours.

   He kept retrieving golf balls from the water hazard all afternoon.

   Note

   One spelling, two jobs: after a form of be it builds the progressive (she was retrieving the files), and on its own it acts as a gerund (retrieving them took hours). Either way it keeps the verb's transitive habit and takes a direct object. That object can be almost anything the verb reaches for: a file, a stranded animal, a memory, a situation gone wrong.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   An act of getting something back, such as fetching, recovering, or carrying in an object.

   Her quick retrieving of the misplaced document impressed the whole office.

   The retrieving of the sunken cargo took the divers nearly a week.

   Similarretrieval, recovery

   Note

   Here the -ing word has become a true noun, and its grammar shows it. It takes an article and links to its object with of (the retrieving of the cargo), and it can be counted, with the plural retrievings. Compare the verbal gerund, which takes its object directly: retrieving the cargo. The noun names one particular act of getting something back.

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