Retracement

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of pulling back or withdrawing something previously positioned or committed
2. A reversal or decline in a financial market, indicating a temporary pause in a prevailing trend
3. The process of returning to a previous state or level after a period of progress or movement away from it

Etymology: "Retracement" is formed from the verb "retrace," meaning to trace again or go back over one's own path, plus the suffix "-ment," which turns a verb into a noun for an action or its result. "Retrace" itself combines the prefix "re-" (back, again) with "trace," which came into English in the 14th century from Old French "trasser," to mark out or follow a line, and ultimately from Latin "tractus," the past participle of "trahere," to draw or pull. The sense of drawing a line over old ground carries into the noun. A retracement, in its most literal use, is the act of going back along a route already travelled or marking again a line already drawn. The sense in your definition, pulling back something previously positioned or committed, is a figurative extension of that idea: one draws back along the same path one took to get somewhere.

Synonyms: recovery, reversion