Both Uses of

retract
in
Washington Square, by Henry James

She had told Morris Townsend that she would not mention him to her father, and she saw no reason to retract this vow of discretion.†
Chpt 8 *

Was it to startle her suddenly into a retractation—to take an advantage of her by dread?†
Chpt 24

Definitions:

(1) (retract)
to take back; or to move back or in
in various senses, including:
- to take back something previously said -- such as a promise or opinion
- to move back or in -- such as an airplane's landing gear, or pulling your hand back after being burned
- in surgery, the use of a medical instrument to draw skin or an organ back out of the way
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
meaning too rare to warrant focus:

Less commonly, in phonetics retract references changing the sound of a vowel by pulling the tongue back.