different between revert vs retract

English

Etymology

From Old French revertir, from Vulgar Latin *reverti?, variant of Latin revert?.

Pronunciation

• (General American) enPR: r?-vûrt?, r?-vûrt?, r?-vûrt?, IPA^(key): /???v?t/, /?i?v?t/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /???v??t/
• (one who reverts to a religion, one who converts to Islam):
  • (General American) enPR: r??vûrt', IPA^(key): /??i?v?t/
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??i?v??t/
• Rhymes: -??(?)t, -i?v??(?)t
• Hyphenation: re?vert

Noun

revert (plural reverts)

1. One who, or that which, reverts.
2. (religion) One who reverts to that religion which he had adhered to before having converted to another
   • 2010, Kurt J. Werthmuller, Coptic Identity and Ayyubid Politics in Egypt: 1218-1250 (page 77)

     [...] Cyril III ibn Laqlaq’s correspondence which reflects genuine—if intentionally vague—concern for the secretive community of Christian converts and reverts [who had converted to Islam before].

3. (Islam, due to the belief that all people are born Muslim) A convert to Islam.
   • 1997, Islamic Society of North America, Islamic horizons, page 27:

     Zeba Siddiqui, herself a revert and editor of the Parent's Manual: A Guide for Muslim Parents Living in North America, contributed to this book as a consultant.
4. (computing) The act of reversion (of e.g. a database transaction or source control repository) to an earlier state.

   We've found that git reverts are at least an order of magnitude faster than SVN reverse merges.

Translations

Verb

revert (third-person singular simple present reverts, present participle reverting, simple past and past participle reverted)

1. (transitive, now rare) To turn back, or turn to the contrary; to reverse.
   • c. 1700, Matthew Prior, A Passage in the Moriae Encomium of Erasmus

     Till happy Chance reverts the cruel scene.

   • The trembling stream […] / Reverted, plays in undulating flow.

2. To throw back; to reflect; to reverberate.
3. (transitive) To cause to return to a former condition.
4. (intransitive, now rare) To return; to come back.
   • c. 1609, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

     Convert his gyves to graces
     so that my arrows,
     Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind
     Would have reverted to my bow again

5. (intransitive) To return to the possession of.
   1. (intransitive, law) Of an estate: To return to its former owner, or to his or her heirs, when a grant comes to an end.
6. (transitive) To cause (a property or rights) to return to the previous owner.

7. (intransitive) To return to a former practice, condition, belief, etc.
8. (intransitive, biology) To return to an earlier or primitive type or state; to take on the traits or characters of an ancestral type.
9. (intransitive) To change back, as from a soluble to an insoluble state or the reverse.

10. (intransitive) To take up again or return to a previous topic.
11. (intransitive, in Muslim usage, due to the belief that all people are born Muslim) To convert to Islam.
    • 1995, Wiz?rat al-I?l?m wa-al-Thaq?fah, Sudanow: Volume 20

      He added that Islam is the religion of justice which rejects injustice, referring to the case of Mike Tyson and how he has become a real problem to the West since he reverted to Islam.
12. (intransitive, nonstandard, proscribed, originally India, now also Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong) To reply (to correspondence, for example).

13. (transitive, mathematics) To treat (a series, such as y = a + bx + cx² + ..., where one variable y is expressed in powers of a second variable x), so as to find the second variable x expressed in a series arranged in powers of y.

Derived terms

• (a return to a previous state): reversion
• reverter
• revertible
• revertive

Translations

Anagrams

• Verret

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.