- 1(formal) to bring or get something back, especially from a place where it should not be synonym recover retrieve something from somebody/something She bent to retrieve her comb from the floor. The dog retrieved the ball from the water. retrieve something The police have been able to retrieve some of the stolen money.
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- 2(computing) to find and get back data or information that has been stored in the memory of a computer retrieve something from somebody/something to retrieve information from the database retrieve something The program allows you to retrieve items quickly by searching under a keyword.
- 3retrieve something to make a bad situation better; to get back something that was lost You can only retrieve the situation by apologizing. Employers are anxious to retrieve the investment they made in training their employees.
retrieve
verbNAmE//rɪˈtriv//
Verb Forms present simple I / you / we / they retrieve he / she / it retrieves
past simple retrieved
-ing form retrieving
NAmE//rɪˈtrivəbl//
adjective opposite irretrievableSee retrieve in the Oxford Advanced Learner's DictionaryCheck pronunciation: retrieve