different between retract vs untell

English

Etymology

From Middle English retracten, from Old French retracter, from Late Latin r?tract? (“I undertake again; I withdraw, refuse, decline; I retract”), from Latin retractus (“withdrawn”), perfect passive participle of retrah? (“I draw or pull back, withdraw; I call back, remove”). Doublet of retreat.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /???t?ækt/
• Rhymes: -ækt

Verb

retract (third-person singular simple present retracts, present participle retracting, simple past and past participle retracted)

1. (transitive) To pull back inside.

2. (transitive, intransitive) To draw back; to draw up.
3. (transitive) To take back or withdraw something one has said.
   • 1676, Edward Stillingfleet, A Defence of the Discourse Concerning the Idolatry Practised in the Church

     I would as freely have retracted this charge of idolatry as I ever made it.

   • 1726, George Granville, The British Enchanters

     She will, and she will not; she grants, denies, / Consents, retracts, advances, and then flies.

4. (transitive, intransitive, academia) To officially withdraw or revoke published academic work.
5. To take back, as a grant or favour previously bestowed; to revoke.
   • 1728, John Woodward, An Attempt towards a Natural History of the Fossils of England

     Filld with the Satisfaction of their own discerning , Faculties , they pass Judgment at first sight ; write on , and are above being ever brought to retract it

Synonyms

• (to take back or withdraw something one has said): take back, withcall, withdraw; See also Thesaurus:recant

Related terms

• retreat

Translations

See also

• epanorthosis (rhetoric)
• unsay
• unspeak

References

• “retract”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.

English

Etymology

un- +? tell

Verb

untell (third-person singular simple present untells, present participle untelling, simple past and past participle untold)

1. (transitive) To withdraw or retract (something told); never to have told.
   • 1993, Jack Selzer, Understanding scientific prose (page 54)

     Narrative untells itself by multiplying itself into discontinuous "turns" that cannot be resolved into a continuous story.

   • 1998, Diane DuBose Brunner, Between the masks: resisting the politics of essentialism (page 29)

     Trinh (1991) writes that untelling the stories of privilege and marginality is a form of displacement that takes a long time.

   • 2004, Patrick Bizzaro, More lights than one: on the fiction of Fred Chappell (page 103)

     And once his story was told, it was told; there was no way to untell it, no way to make himself look good.

2. (transitive, archaic) To undo or reverse the counting of; to count back.
   • 1607, Thomas Heywood, A Woman Killed with Kindness

     That Time could turn up his swift sandy glass, / To untell the days, and to redeem these hours.