0 past simple and past participle of retreat --
1 to go away from a place or person in order to escape from fighting or danger: --
2 to decide not to do something, or to stop believing something, because it causes too many problems: --
The government is retreating from its promises.
3 If a price retreats, it goes down after it has gone up: --
It inflicted heavy casualties on the assailants who retreated in disarray.
After this loss of honour (for such was the decree's real significance), conservative nobles retreated into passivity or departed altogether.
Prospective proponents of universal worker protection policy retreated, conceding business prerogatives in the labor market.
Some of these initiatives failed, others succeeded partly, or temporarily, for the period of war, and retreated afterwards.
By 1970, video was rarely seen in live performance and increasingly retreated into the studio, mediated almost to stultification by tedious and budgetconsuming editing systems.
Before reaching the barrier all the ticks retreated, 17 skirting completely round the liquid.
During pursuit, the wasps continuously advanced and retreated, always attempting to orientate themselves near the rear of the ant and alight on their abdomens.
The literature also indicates that the glaciers generally retreated during the first half of the nineteenth century.
