Retrieve

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ɹɪˈtɹiːv/

Definitions

1. To get something back or bring it back from where it was left, stored, or lost
2. To obtain an item again after it was lost or stored
3. To recover an object from a place where it had been left

Etymology: The verb "retrieve" arrived in English around 1410 as "retreve," borrowed from Old French "retrover," meaning "to find again." Its core is the prefix "re-" ("again") joined to "trover" ("to find"), and the French word is an old one with a surprising ancestry: "trover" probably descends from a Vulgar Latin verb "tropāre," meaning "to compose" or "to make verses." How a word for composing music or poetry came to mean "finding" is still debated, though the link is generally traced through the idea of inventing or discovering something new. English spelling wandered for centuries. The 16th century saw the form "retrive," and the modern spelling "retrieve" only settled around 1650, when the French-looking "ie" was restored. Along the way the word lost its connection to composing and kept only the sense of recovering something that had been lost or mislaid, which is still its everyday meaning.

Synonyms: recover, get back, regain

Antonyms: lose, misplace