Retrieve: meaning, example and synonyms
Retrievev. To get back or bring back something from where it was left or lost.
Example
Divers spent three weeks retrieving the ship's instruments from the seabed, and conservators then soaked each one in fresh water to draw out corrosive salts.
- Part of speech
- verb
- Synonyms
- recover, regain, reclaim, fetch
- Antonyms
- lose, abandon, discard, misplace
- Memory tip
- re (back) + trouver (find): find it and bring it back.
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Check yourself: Retrieve in context
Engineers used a robotic arm to ______ the damaged sensor from the reactor's cooling pool, where radiation made it unsafe for human divers.
Answer: retrieve. Bringing a sensor back out of a pool is to retrieve it. festoon (decorate with garlands), abut (border on) and rejuvenate (make youthful again) don't fit this context.
The librarian could ______ any volume from the closed stacks within minutes, thanks to a cataloging system she had refined over three decades.
Answer: retrieve. Fetching a book from the closed stacks means to retrieve it. circumvent (get around), abut (border on) and festoon (decorate with garlands) don't fit this context.