dynamic
toggle menu
menu
vocabulary
1000+ books

retract
in a sentence

Show 3 more sentences
  • The monster let out an angry shriek and pulled back several feet, its spikes retracting into its body.  (source)
  • He took out the old blade and laid it on the shelf and put in one of the new ones and screwed the handle back together and retracted the blade and put the cutter in his pocket.  (source)
    retracted = slid back
  • I then retracted as many statements as I could, claiming that I had lied about everything.  (source)
    retracted = took back something previously said
▲ show less (of above)
Show 10 more with 9 word variations
  • ...it was not often necessary for her to retract a statement, but when she did...  (source)
    retract = take back (something said)
  • When the wind was too strong, it was retracted.†  (source)
  • It had fallen in some way that was keeping the lock's tongue from retracting completely.†  (source)
  • "The vehicle at which you are now looking, urn, at," Henry said, sweeping his arm as if addressing an awestruck crowd, "is a 1957 Ford Fairlane Skyliner, the first retractable hardtop convertible ever made in America.†  (source)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-able" means able to be. This is the same pattern you see in words like breakable, understandable, and comfortable.
  • He would marry her tomorrow if she could regain Bertha Dorset's friendship; and to induce the open resumption of that friendship, and the tacit retractation of all that had caused its withdrawal, she had only to put to the lady the latent menace contained in the packet so miraculously delivered into her hands.†  (source)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.
  • The moment the last person disembarks, the equipment retracts.†  (source)
  • Ralph pocketed his pencil with the lead unretracted.†  (source)
    unretracted = not taken back
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unretracted means not and reverses the meaning of retracted. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
  • And as theories go this was all very fine and pleasant until Veet Voojagig suddenly claimed to have found this planet, and to have worked there for a while driving a limousine for a family of cheap green retractables, whereupon he was taken away, locked up, wrote a book and was finally sent into tax exile, which is the usual fate reserved for those who are determined to make fools of themselves in public.†  (source)
  • Her mind was theoretic, and yearned by its nature after some lofty conception of the world which might frankly include the parish of Tipton and her own rule of conduct there; she was enamoured of intensity and greatness, and rash in embracing whatever seemed to her to have those aspects; likely to seek martyrdom, to make retractations, and then to incur martyrdom after all in a quarter where she had not sought it.†  (source)
  • It was a terrible thing to him to retract a word,  (source)
    retract = take back something previously said
▲ show less (of above)