Retrieving

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The method of obtaining lost or misplaced items or information involves reclaiming data or materials necessary for specific purposes
2. The action taken to recover lost or misplaced objects includes the process of gathering necessary information or materials from various sources
3. The action of getting back something that was lost, stored, or misplaced

Etymology: The verb "retrieve" began as a hunting and finding word. Its ancestor in Old French, "retrover," meant "to find again," built from "re-" ("again") and "trover" ("to find"). The French verb was in turn related to the Vulgar Latin "tropāre," which meant "to compose" or "to invent," so the notion of finding something behind the verb is a little indirect. English picked it up in the Middle Ages as "retreve," and for centuries the spelling kept shifting, settling into the modern form only around 1650. Throughout that stretch the sense stayed close to recovering something that had gone astray, a meaning that still underlies the present participle "retrieving" used for fetching lost goods or pulling stored data back into view.

Synonyms: recovering, regaining, fetching, collecting, bringing back

Antonyms: losing, discarding, abandoning, forsaking, neglecting