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Retrieve   Listen
verb
Retrieve  v. t.  (past & past part. retrieved; pres. part. retrieving)  
1.
To find again; to recover; to regain; to restore from loss or injury; as, to retrieve one's character; to retrieve independence. "With late repentance now they would retrieve The bodies they forsook, and wish to live."
2.
To recall; to bring back. "To retrieve them from their cold, trivial conceits."
3.
To remedy the evil consequence of, to repair, as a loss or damadge. "Accept my sorrow, and retrieve my fall." "There is much to be done... and much to be retrieved."
Synonyms: To recover; regain; recruit; repair; restore.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Retrieve" Quotes from Famous Books



... was a prince of too much spirit to be discouraged by the first difficulties of an undertaking; and he was anxious to retrieve his honor by more successful and more gallant enterprises. For this purpose he had, during the course of the campaign, sent orders to summon a parliament by his son Edward, whom he had left with the title of guardian, and to demand some supply in his urgent necessities. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... could not control an exclamation of astonishment, he made no effort to retrieve his error; but, after the departure of M. de Sully, placed the required amount in the hands of the Comte de Lude, who hastened to transfer it to those of the frail beauty. It was not until after ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... twenty. Chagrined at my folly, I returned home: I had nothing but a pair of pistols left, for which, because of their workmanship, General Woyekow had offered me twenty ducats. These I took, intending by their aid to attempt to retrieve my loss. Firing of guns and pistols was heard throughout the town, because of the festival, and I, in imitation of the rest, went to the window and fired mine. After a few discharges, one of my pistols burst, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... Dublin, as the Irish people were very desirous of hearing some of his compositions performed in their country. Handel accepted the invitation very willingly, for he saw in the tone in which it was conveyed an assurance of the sympathy of the sister isle, as well as a prospect of being enabled to retrieve his fallen fortunes. He left England at the beginning of November, having previously sent a promise to Dublin that he would devote a portion of the money realised by his performances to three charitable institutions in that city. ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... driven back towards the river, Salabat Khan, the Shah's general, made a valiant attempt to retrieve the fortunes of the day. He had for his bodyguard 500 Portuguese "renegades," and with him these men threw themselves into the advancing ranks of the Hindus, where they "did such wonderful deeds" that ever after they were remembered. They penetrated the king's host, and cut their way forwards ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... wrathful and baffled, affected not to see his Admiral's signal, and made one brave attempt to close with the ships nearest him and so retrieve the honours of the day. But he got more than he gave. For the Englishmen suddenly slipped to the wind of him, despite all his efforts, and lying snugly on his flank, as he yawed over with the breeze, pounded him merrily betwixt wind and ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... issued the farthing as an entire coin. The change recalled the memory of Merlin's prophecy; and the vague oracles, that had been compiled to describe Henry's dominion over the Saxons, were easily interpreted to mean that a Welsh prince should be crowned at London, and retrieve what its natives regarded as the lost ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... dog adjusts himself to the bow! At first he is afraid of the long stick. But he soon gets the idea and not waiting for the detonation of the gun, he accepts the hum of the bowstring and the whirr of the arrow as signals for action. Some dogs have even shown a tendency to retrieve our arrows for us, and nothing suits them better than that we go on foot, and by their sides can run with them and with our silent shafts can lay low what they bring to bay. In fact, it is a perfect balance of power—the hound with his wondrous nose, lean flanks and tireless legs; ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... Company had thrown off the drag-weight of local embarrassment, the Kansas line began to disentangle itself from legal complications; and on July 1, 1865, the enterprise passed into the hands of a management which, if powerless to retrieve the past, was at least determined to make the future secure. At the head of this new organization was John D. Perry of St Louis; and associated with him were a body of capitalists in Missouri and Pennsylvania whose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... what the German army has accomplished along these lines were not true, there can be no freedom of political speculation or experiment, no time to make mistakes and to retrieve the situation, when one is surrounded on all sides by overt or potential enemies. Germany must have a powerful army and fleet, must have a strong and autocratic government, or she is lost. "Ohne Armee kein Deutschland." She can permit no silly, no stupid, no excited majority to imperil her ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... and sacrifice rewarded with scorn, she leapt up to hurl back the truth. But a vision rose before her, the picture of L. W. sobbing and bleeding, his arm flapping beside him, striving vainly to retrieve his treachery; and the words ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... oftentimes the sunshine of their comprehensive beneficence, and always destroying their power to discountenance[20] evil-doers. Here is the sad excuse. But, for all that, we must affirm that, if the Irish landed gentry do not yet come forward to retrieve the ground which they have forfeited by inertia, history will record them as passive colluders with the Dublin repealers. The evil is so operatively deep, looking backward or forward, that we have purposely brought it forward in a second aspect, viz., as contrasted with the London press. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... his Kaiser's Visit. An errand of his own, too, the Prince had,—about his new Daughter-in-law Massalska, and claims of extensive Polish Properties belonging to her. He was the charm of Petersburg and the Czarina; but of the Massalska Properties could retrieve nothing whatever. The munificent Czarina gave him "a beautiful Territory in the Crim," instead; and invited him to come and see it with her, on his Kaiser's next Visit (1787, the aquatic Visit and the highly ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... marriage, upon the departure of her father to San Domingo to retrieve his fortunes, her mother had found an asylum for her at the elegant home of the farmer-general M. de La Popeliniere. This occurred at the time that Paris was theatre mad, and when great actors and actresses were the heroes and heroines of society. At this ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... childish appeal—"you will help me to intercede for him? It is the restraint only that is killing him—that is goading him to madness! Think of him, Father—think of him: ruined and disgraced, dying to retrieve himself by any reckless action, any desperate chance of recovery, and yet locked up where he can do nothing—attempt nothing—not even lift a hand to pursue the man who has helped to bring him ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... one time during the morning, and had then lost sight of us among the clouds. This solicitude on their part was no doubt prompted by the fact that they were to be held by the mutessarif of Bayazid as personally responsible for our safe return, and perhaps, too, by the hope that they might thus retrieve the good graces they had lost the day before, and thereby increase the amount of the forthcoming baksheesh. Nothing, now, was too heavy for the donkeys, and even the zaptiehs themselves condescended to relieve us ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... in the future. Watch those wild lads who are sowing in wine what they reap in headache and degradation. Night after night they laugh with senseless glee, night after night inanities which pass for wit are poured forth; and daily the nerve and strength of each carouser grow weaker. Can you retrieve those nights? Never! But you may take the most shattered of the crew and assure him that all is not irretrievably lost; his weakened nerve may be steadied, his deranged gastric functions may gradually grow more healthy, his distorted ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... men and women rose and pledged themselves to help Zora; and when she turned with overflowing heart to thank the preacher he had left the platform, and she found him in the yard whispering darkly with two deacons. She realized her mistake, and promised to retrieve it during the week; but the week was full of planning and journeying ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... question of reparations. I am not going to discuss in detail what ought to be done in that difficult and vexed question, but I want to call your attention to the mistake which was originally made, and which we have never yet been able to retrieve. The fundamental error of Versailles was the failure to recognise that even in dealing with a conquered enemy you can only successfully proceed by co-operation. That was the mistake—the idea that the victorious Powers could impose their will without regard to the feelings and desires and national ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various

... STACPOOLE have shown themselves not only fully alive to all the humorous chances of their theme, but inspired with an infectious delight in them. It is, for example, a singularly happy touch that the wild oats that Uncle Simon tries to retrieve are not of to-day but from the long-vanished pastures of mid-Victorian London. Of course such a fantasy can't properly be ended. Having extracted (as I gratefully admit) the last ounce of entertainment from him, the authors simply wake Uncle Simon up and go home. As a small literary coincidence ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various

... disinterested spirit it only need be said that on many occasions he had actually come forward as a private individual and had taken over the mortgage himself, distinctly stating that he could not hold it for more than a year, but expressing a hope that the debtor might in that time retrieve himself. If this really happened, he earned the man's eternal gratitude; if not, he foreclosed indeed, but the loser never forgot that by Del Fence's kindness he had been offered a last chance at a desperate moment. It ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford

... laughed outright, and Dangerfield had to retrieve a card from the floor, to hide ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott

... nor so unlooked-for. Accordingly the panic and the alarm was as great as if the enemy besieged the city, not the camp. They send for the consul Nautius; in whom when there seemed to be but insufficient protection, and they were determined that a dictator should be appointed to retrieve their embarrassed affairs, Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus is appointed by universal consent. It is worth those persons' while to listen, who despise all things human in comparison with riches, and who suppose "that ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... first merely platonic, bade fair to harden into active co-operation. It was not until then that the Entente Powers, discerning the fateful character of their errors and the trend of events, resolved after much hesitation and discussion to put forth an effort to retrieve the situation. Of his philo-German tendencies King Constantine gave several public proofs long before the war, and on the psychological soil from which they sprang, German diplomacy raised its typical structure of intrigue and adulation. As the irresistible captain who had shattered the ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... inseparable. We would go for walks together, and I have frequently spent hours throwing sticks into the pond at the bottom of the garden for him to retrieve. It was this practice which saved his life at the greatest ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various

... Dartmouth, 'he affected to conclude all his discourses with a jest, though the subject were never so serious, and if it did not meet with the applause he expected, would be extremely out of countenance and silent, till an opportunity offered to retrieve the approbation he thought he had lost; but was never better pleased than when he was turning Bishop Burnet and his politics into ridicule' (Burnet, ed. ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... immediately to her employer, and told him the story. "This is her first offence," said he. "The girl is young, and she is the only child of a poor widow. Give her a chance to retrieve this one false step, and she may be restored to society, a useful and honored woman. I will see that thou art paid for the silk." The man readily agreed to withdraw the prosecution, and said he would have dealt otherwise by the girl, if he had known all the circumstances. "Thou shouldst have ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... they drove immediately in Lady Betty's coach to the shop of William Flexney, Churchill's publisher, and persuaded him to undertake the publication. Next day Boswell repented of the scurrility of what they had written and got Dempster to go with him to retrieve the copy. Erskine at first was sulky, but finally consented to help revise it again. It went back to Flexney in a day or two, and ...
— Critical Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira, Written by Mr. David Malloch (1763) • James Boswell, Andrew Erskine and George Dempster

... were sadly thrown on the defensive, and labored heavily under their already discounted declamation. But instinct rather than sagacity led them to turn their eyes to the future, and successfully upon other points to retrieve their mistake. Within six weeks after Lincoln's speech President Polk sent to the Senate a treaty of peace, under which Mexico ceded to the United States an extent of territory equal in area to Germany, ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... sum of money covenanted by agreement, I was entirely freed from vexation of the law."[269] Writing generally of his monetary dealings, Cardan says: "Whenever I may have incurred a loss, I have never been content merely to retrieve the same, I have always contrived to seize upon something extra."[270] Or again: "If at any time I have lost twenty crowns, I have never rested until I have succeeded in getting back these and twenty more ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... serve a single purpose in this tale—they draw your attention to the principal character, to the person who plays the title role, so to speak, and then, having done so, sink back into an oblivion from which it is quite unnecessary to retrieve them. ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon

... such a lady as this, dear Madam, have as much merit as many even of those, who, having not had her temptations, have not fallen? This, at least, one may aver, that next to not committing an error, is the resolution to retrieve it all that one may, to repent of it, and studiously to avoid the repetition. But who, besides this excellent Mrs. Wrightson, having so fallen, and being still so ardently solicited and pursued, (and ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... imperative. He hardly dared to think of the past day's slaughter, which—there was no doubt now—had been due to the previous work of the spy, and how his brigade had been selected—by the irony of Fate—to suffer for and yet retrieve it. If she had had a hand in this wicked plot, ought he to spare her? Or was his destiny and hers to be ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... to his race, until the utmost term of patriarchal longevity? Will Judge Pyncheon, above all, make due apologies to that company of honorable friends, and satisfy them that his absence from the festive board was unavoidable, and so fully retrieve himself in their good opinion that he shall yet be Governor of Massachusetts? And all these great purposes accomplished, will he walk the streets again, with that dog-day smile of elaborate benevolence, ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... centuries: Semitic rulers replaced the Achaean tyrants at Salamis, and in most of the other cities, and Citium became what it had been before the rise of Salamis, the principal commercial centre in the island. Evagoras, a descendant of the ancient kings, endeavoured to retrieve the Grecian cause: after driving out of Salamis Abdemon, its Tyrian ruler, he took possession of all the other towns except Citium and Amathus. This is not the place to recount the brilliant part played by Evagoras, in conjunction with Conon, during ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... Kidd, and on board the Quidah-Marchand. There is one Burk, an Englishman, that lives at St. Thomas, who has got a great Store of the goods and mony for Kidd's account. St. Thomas belongs to the Danes, but I hope to retrieve what Burt has in his Hands.[11] The sending this Sloop will cost but about 300 L. if she be out Three moneths. I hope your Lordships will take care, that immediate orders be sent to Antegoa to secure Bolton, ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... which this scoundrel had sucked the capital. There was an awful amount of debt to other houses, several of which would have come down, and ruined the unfortunates connected with them, if Errington had not come forward and sacrificed almost all he possessed to retrieve the credit of his name. He says he ought to have undertaken the risks as well as reaped the profit of the concern. Garston Hall is advertised for sale; so is the house in Berkley Square; his stud is brought to the ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... that I should go with him is a great compliment, and I thoroughly wish that I could do it. As it is, I must go to Killaloe and retrieve my finances. I daresay, Lady Laura, you can hardly conceive how very poor a man I am." There was a melancholy tone about his voice as he said this, which made her think for the moment whether or no he had been right in going into Parliament, and whether she had been ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... Korsakoff, who had preceded him and who was to rejoin him later, had been beaten by Molitor, and that Massena had recaptured Zurich and occupied the canton of Glaris. Souvarow now gave up the attempt to proceed up the valley of the Reuss, and wrote to Korsakoff and Jallachieh, "I hasten to retrieve your losses; stand firm as ramparts: you shall answer to me with your heads for every step in retreat that you take." The aide-de-camp was also charged to communicate to the Russian and Austrian generals a verbal plan of battle. Generals Linsken and Jallachieh were to attack the French ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... had an encouraging prospect of acquittal. Unfortunately, the colonel had taken a wrong position at the start. He had been betrayed by those of the brotherhood who had the influence requisite for assistance. The cheat had been carried so far by fair and continued promises, it was now too late to retrieve himself. I felt deeply interested for him. He was a noble specimen of mankind. He possessed abilities worthy of a more honourable application. He bore all his misfortunes with unexampled fortitude. The night after his Wheeling and Pittsburgh associates had betrayed his confidence, he ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... that they do not need much rest. Those who shoot duck have occasion often to say hard things of the marsh-harrier and the peregrine falcon, because these birds are apt to come as unbidden guests to the shoot and carry off wounded duck and teal before the shikari has time to retrieve them. ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar

... Wouter having surpassed all who preceded him, and Peter, or Piet, as he was sociably called by the old Dutch burghers, who were ever prone to familiarize names, having never been equaled by any successor. He was, in fact, the very man fitted by nature to retrieve the desperate fortunes of her beloved province, had not the Fates, those most potent and unrelenting of all ancient spinsters, destined them to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... good. Remember, it is doubly imperative that Lena should marry a man whose means are in his own power, so that he could advance something. This would be simply ruin—throwing up the whole thing, after all I have done to retrieve our position." ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of him?" cried Peters with energy. "Why, he shall retrieve his father's faults—wash out the stain in his father's character. He shall prove as liege a subject as I have been a rebellious one. He shall as faithfully serve his country as I have shamefully deserted it. He shall be as honest ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... afford her entertainment. I do not belong to her world of opulence, and if even I desired it, which the gods forbid, my means would not enable me to make the necessary display. My uncle, thinking to retrieve the fallen fortunes of the title, amassed enormous wealth as a company promoter, while I, on whom the title has descended, am perfectly contented with its fallen fortunes. I have scarcely a thought or taste in common with my aunt. In fact, I must bore her exceedingly. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... him Marc Lemarc was riding. Drennen did not think unkindly of him. He realised that the hatred he had felt a few days ago had been born of delirium and madness and jealousy. Ygerne sought to retrieve the long lost Bellaire fortune; Lemarc's interests jumped with hers in the matter. One had the map, the other the key; they must work together. Lemarc was riding with the jingle of Drennen's money in his pocket and Drennen was glad to think of it. He was helping Ygerne, he was not sorry ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... affair in which the Naval Brigade were engaged during the war, as, shortly afterwards, just as they were hoping to retrieve the disasters which had befallen the force,—the reinforcements from England having now come up to the spot,—peace was made, the Transvaal was surrendered to the Boers, and the sacrifices made and the blood which had been shed ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... our last detour," replied the Elector; "there are now many miles of winding but level road before us, and you have thus a chance to retrieve your reputation as a horseman in the eyes of ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... when there dawned on me the vileness of the wicked plot in which I had become engaged. For a few hours I felt that to destroy myself was the only way in which I could retrieve my honor. But the lesson you had taught served me well in those hours of need. Then the thought of you, an officer in the American Navy, brought a new resolve into my mind. No pledges that I had ignorantly made to such scoundrels could bind ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock

... why will ye die? God, your Savior, asks you why? He, who did your souls retrieve, Died himself, that ye might live. Will ye let him die in vain? Crucify your Lord again? Why, ye ransomed sinners, why Will ye slight ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz

... experiments, made some years ago, to retrieve a declining fortune, I was lucky enough at last to marry the mistress of a boarding-school: her circumstances were not, indeed, at the time of our marriage, very considerable. But as I was neither unacquainted with the world, ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous

... next ten minutes. With the agility of a chamois he scurried along the narrow ledges, and several times Maru was forced to check his speed so that we could keep pace with him. Holman's face showed the joy he felt at receiving another opportunity to retrieve the blunders we had made in our two previous attacks. Now we had reduced the big villain's fighting bodyguard to two persons, Soma and the dancer, and if he had not impressed the carriers, we outnumbered him. But Leith was on his own ground, and we had already discovered that the Isle of ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer

... bric-a-brac, just as the bird bits of straw; and he implored her not to scold him. In the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, he had ferreted out two Dresden vases, which he bought, resolving to deprive himself for a time of his grapes at forty sous a pound, in order to retrieve ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... governors, Wouter having surpassed all who preceded him, and Pieter or Piet, as he was sociably called by the old Dutch burghers, who were ever prone to familiarize names, having never been equalled by any successor. He was, in fact, the very man fitted by Nature to retrieve the desperate fortunes of her beloved province, had not the fates, those most potent and unrelenting of all ancient spinsters, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... it was from loyalty and too great an anxiety not to leave Her Majesty in a moment of such great difficulty. I ought to have gone when I was first left by my colleagues in a minority in my own Cabinet. I was anxious, however, to try my utmost, but it is impossible to retrieve lost time. As soon as I saw Lord John's letter I felt that the ground was slipping away from under me, and that whatever I might now propose would appear as dictated by the Opposition, as taking Lord John's measure. On the 1st of November the whole country ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... forces not evenly matched in strength, and most of the Goths were destroyed, though some few with difficulty made their escape and returned to their own camp. And Vittigis reviled these men, insisting that cowardice had been the cause of their defeat, and undertaking to find another set of men to retrieve the loss after no long time, he remained quiet for the present; but three days later he selected men from all the camps, five hundred in number, and bade them make a display of valorous deeds against ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius

... again is food for the vitiated appetites of scandalmongers, and that miserable but numerous portion of mankind, who rejoice at the fall of a superior. The name of debtor is an odium which a proud spirit can but ill support; cunning and avarice come in a thousand shapes, not to retrieve lost credit, but to swell the list of embarrassments;—friends have fled at the approach of the crisis, and associates appear but to pluck the poor victim of the wrecks of his fortune! Absenteeism, the curse ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various

... been cashier, but before that, in the time of Anderson, the old cashier, who had died, much strange juggling had been done with the records. The railroad in New Mexico had apparently drained the banker's private fortune, and he determined to retrieve it by one stroke. This was nothing less than the looting of the bank's securities, turning them into money, and ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... people of their money, which was another phrase for debt, was a sort of moral pillory; it would have been wickedness, to her mind, to have run counter to her husband's desire to "do the right thing," and retrieve his name. She had a confused, dreamy notion that, if the creditors were all paid, her plate and linen ought to come back to her; but she had an inbred perception that while people owed money they were unable to pay, they couldn't rightly call anything their own. She murmured a little ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... a by-word of reproach among the nations, for the careless, prodigal course by which, in early youth, she has endangered her honor. But you cannot look about you there, without seeing that there are resources abundant to retrieve, and soon to retrieve, far greater errors, if they are only ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... our emolument; and when properly directed, is the greatest excitement to all that is noble and generous, Natura seldom had the mortification of seeing any of the same standing with himself placed above him; and whenever such an accident happened, he was sure to retrieve it by an ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... can't blame the others for looking at it from a matter of fact point of view. Want of courage is at all times regarded by men as the most unpardonable of failings, and at a time like the present this feeling is naturally far stronger even than usual. I hope with you that Bathurst will retrieve himself yet, but we shall certainly do him no good by trying to fight his battle until he does. You and I, thinking as we do, will of course make no alteration in our manner towards him. I am glad to hear that young Wilson also stands ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty

... we must make them, and it is not the first time we have let them know that we are able. The crowns of these kingdoms have not so far disowned the right of succession but they may retrieve it again; and if Scotland thinks to come off from a successive to an elective state of government, England has not promised not to assist the right heir and put them into possession without any regard to their ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... a vivid blue flash and the man plunged lifelessly to the ground. She flinched instinctively and fell over an unseen rock, the bag of precious clothes flying from her hand. She scrambled up again, her left knee half numb, and turned to retrieve it. ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin

... "I can wish you no better lot," said he, with enthusiasm, "than to have a wife and children. If you are prosperous, there they are to share your prosperity; if otherwise, there they are to comfort you." And, indeed, I have observed that a married man, falling into misfortune, is more apt to retrieve his situation in the world than a single one; partly because he is more stimulated to exertion by the necessities of the helpless and beloved beings who depend upon him for subsistence; but chiefly because ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... to retrieve my character. "Gentlemen," said I, "you have heard this very singular account. Trusting the spirits utterly and entirely as I do, it occurs to me that there is no reason why they may not, after all, have been right in their suspicions of this young person. Who can say ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell

... heavily in his efforts to retrieve his fortunes. He said nothing, but accepted the losses grimly. Mrs. Noble, however, after each successive loss ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve

... M. d'Epernon had so confounded the affairs of Guienne that nothing but his removal could retrieve them. ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... had periods in which he seemed to try vaguely to retrieve himself from dissipation, and to acquire self-mastery by ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... of his own meanness, and somewhat alarmed at the idea of fighting three duels, to retrieve his credit, thought it best to submit, without struggle, in the first instance, to that public disgrace which he had merited. He wrote a shabby apology to Major O'Shannon and Sir Philip, concluding ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... Scott, the soul of honour, one of the purest and brightest of all the spirits that make our joy, the gallant struggler—even that delight of the world was hounded to death by a firm of bill-discounters at the very time when he was breaking his gallant heart in the effort to retrieve disaster. No! The world is pitiful so far as its kindest hearts are concerned, but the army of commonplace people are all pitiless. See what follows when a man goes "down." Suppose that he invests in bank shares. The ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... me. The first thing I knew I heard a bang close to my ear, and then a second shot, after which Cousin Hal jumped up shouting that he had knocked over the entire bunch. He had, but you ought to have seen his look when I sent him wading out to retrieve the game. Still, he laughed himself at the joke, and begged me not to tell ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes

... conduct, however it may have originated. Formerly it must have been often vehemently urged that an insulted gentleman OUGHT to fight a duel. We even say that a pointer OUGHT to point, and a retriever to retrieve game. If they fail to do so, they fail in their ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... first thing he noticed was that the fog was driving nearer. The wind was now due east. It promised to bring the day's fishing to an early end. He must retrieve the barrel and get the fish aboard as soon as possible or ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... of 1628 had the effect of encouraging the directors to try to retrieve the failure ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... precipitate," he said, in answer to his host's inquiring look. "'The more haste the less speed,' as the old proverb has it. I fear I frightened the dear girl by too sudden and vehement an avowal of my passion. Yet I trust it may not be too late to retrieve my error." ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley

... trait in the character of bees, for which I feel, not merely admiration, but the most profound respect. Such is their indomitable energy and perseverance, that under circumstances apparently the most despairing, they will still labor to the utmost, to retrieve their losses, and sustain the sinking state. So long as they have a queen, or any prospect of raising one, they struggle most vigorously against impending ruin, and never give up, unless their condition is absolutely desperate. In one of my observing hives, I once had a colony of bees, ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... read your letter with tears in my eyes; but it gave me much pleasure to see your name at the bottom, and more so when I observed by the postscript that your wound is not dangerous. But pray, dear sir, is it not possible by a second attempt to retrieve the great loss we have sustained? I presume the General's chariot is at the fort. In it you may come here, and my house is heartily at your command. Pray take care of your valuable health; keep your spirits up, and I doubt not of your recovery. ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... last, thank God! The only difference between him and a creature such as good men and women abhor was that he meant to retrieve, as far as in him lay, the past error and injustice. All his future life should prove his purpose. And then, like a sweet fragrance or a spirit touch, his love pleaded for him. He had been weak, but not vicious. The unfettered life ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock

... the victorious army of Sir Charles Napier entered Hyderabad in triumph. He had not been there long when he heard that Shere Mahomed, or the Lion, one of the most powerful of the Ameers of Scinde, was in arms at the head of a large force, hoping to retrieve the losses of his brother chieftains. Considerable reinforcements for the British army were expected—some from Sukkur down the Indus, and others ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... central and southern routes, terminating respectively in Syria and Egypt, exhibited increased activity, and by rich profits in Alexandria the Venetians were able to retrieve their losses in the Black Sea. But it was only a matter of time before the Turks, conquering Damascus in 1516 and Cairo in 1517, extended their burdensome restrictions and taxes over those regions likewise. Eastern luxuries, transported by caravan ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... Holyoke, for which great preparations were being made. Rose, knowing she was not to return, seemed to think all further effort on her part unnecessary; and numerous were the reprimands, to say nothing of the black marks which she received. Jenny, on the contrary, said she wished to retrieve her reputation for laziness, and leave behind a good impression. So, never before in her whole life had she behaved so well, or studied so hard as she did during the last few weeks of her stay at Mount Holyoke. Ida, who was expecting her father, aunt and cousin to be present at the anniversary, ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes

... search party calling for him and had come out to meet them. Missing them in the dark he had chanced upon the trench from the front and tripped over the parapet. With his assistance it did not take long to retrieve the missing half-company. ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... neighbors. For this shy, imaginative young girl of eighteen had convinced herself that it might still contain a part of its old treasure. She would dig for it herself, without telling anybody. If she failed, no one would know it; if she were successful, she would surprise her father and perhaps retrieve their fortune by less vulgar means than their present toil. Thanks to the secluded locality and the fact that she was known to spend her leisure moments in wandering there, she could work without suspicion. Secretly conveying a shovel and a few ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... careless way she had of parking her gum on the corner of my desk and forgettin' to retrieve it. So with four or five more folios to do on a report I was makin' to the Ordnance Department, I puts it up to Mr. Piddie personally to pick the best ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford

... without attempting to retrieve his vanished work. Poetry is good, but tea is better. Besides, he argued within himself, he remembered all he had written, and could easily write it out again. So, as far as he was concerned, those three sheets of paper were ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... planters. But if this statement was just, would not the abolition be beneficial to them? That it would, was the opinion of Mr. Long, their own historian. "If the Slave-trade," says he, "was prohibited for four or five years, it would enable them, to retrieve their affairs by preventing them from running into debt, either by renting or purchasing Negros." To this acknowledgment he would add a fact from the evidence, which was, that a North American province, by such a prohibition ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... out of the country. It was when the mummy was lost that I unexpectedly came across the manuscript, which detailed the funeral ceremonies of Inca Caxas, and on learning about the two emeralds I was naturally more anxious than ever to discover the mummy and retrieve my fallen fortunes by means of the jewels. But, as I said, all search proved vain, and I afterward married, thinking to settle down on what fortune remained to me. I did live quietly in Lima for years until my wife died. Then with my daughter I came to Europe ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... sixteenth century bequeathed to us Florentines a little of its cheerful cruelty and something of its pleasure in vendettas. Casting your thoughts into a less remote past, you may retrieve an impression of your last performance before your departure from the Florence of our youth. Need I describe that performance? Its details were conceived and executed with much talent. It made me, who was its butt, the laughing stock of our circle ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... Byermere—I might retrieve at them. But they don't come off for a month nearly; and what is a man like me to do in ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... are by these wretches reduced to the same condition Virgil was, when the centurion seized on his estate. But I don't doubt but I can fix upon the Maecenas of the present age, that will retrieve them from it. But, whatever effect this piracy may have upon us, it contributed very much to the advantage of Mr. Philips: it helped him to a reputation which he neither desired nor expected, and to the honour of being put upon a work of which he did not think himself capable; but the event showed ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... the growing disaffection of the Roman people was carried to Ravenna and quickened the impatience of Witigis, who was now eager to retrieve the blunder which he had committed in the evacuation of Rome. He marched southward with a large army, which is represented to us as consisting of 150,000 men, and in the early days of March he was already at the other ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... thousand pounds a-year, Do you complain, you can not bear An ill, you may so soon retrieve? Good Alard, faith, is modester By ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... in May saw minor German successes on the western front, but these were immediately succeeded by determined efforts on the part of the Allies to retrieve lost ground. The week of May 10 to 15 was marked by fierce assaults by the British and French upon the German positions in Flanders and northern France. Thousands of lives were sacrificed on both sides. At one point on the Yser where the Germans were beaten back, they left ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... software, Cornell is developing a Unix-based server as well as clients for the server that support multiple platforms (Macintosh, IBM and Sun workstations), in the hope that people from any of those platforms will retrieve books; a further operating assumption is that standard interfaces will be used as much as possible, where standards can be put in place, because CLASS considers this retrieval software a library application and would ...
— LOC WORKSHOP ON ELECTRONIC TEXTS • James Daly

... Tilley had the fishery in charge. Everything went wrong. Mishaps befell the vessels. The price of fish went down. The colonists, "being ill chosen and ill commanded, fell into many disorders and did the company little service." An attempt was made to retrieve affairs by putting the colony under a different direction. The Dorchester partners heard of "some religious and well-affected persons that were lately removed out of New Plymouth, out of dislike of their principles of rigid separation, of which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... French King left a full-grown though rather worthless son. This young man, Charles VII, continued to deny the English authority, from a safe distance in Southern France. He made, however, no effort to assert himself or retrieve his fortunes; and the English captains in the name of their baby King took possession of one fortress after another, till, in 1429, Orleans was the only French city of rank still barring their way from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... silly chase of robins. Under check-cord and spike-collar he would become a fast and stylish dog, clean-cut in his bird work, perhaps a field-trial winner. He would learn to take reproof amiably, to "heel" at a word, to respect the whistle at any distance, to be steady to shot and wing, to retrieve promptly from land or water, and never to bolt or range beyond control or be guilty ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... next morning with the burden of care still weighing upon him. In the evening the thought occurred to him that he might retrieve his losses where he had incurred them, and again he bent his steps to the gambling house. He risked five dollars, being one-half of what he had. This was lost. Desperately he hazarded the remaining five dollars, and ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... that famous retreat, which was of more advantage to the Americans than a victory. Morgan, knowing well that Cornwallis would soon be after him to retrieve the disaster at the Cowpens, hastened with his prisoners and spoils across the Catawba. Cornwallis, furious at his defeat and eager to move rapidly in pursuit, set fire to all his baggage and wagons except those absolutely needed, thus turning his ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris



Words linked to "Retrieve" :   call back, convey, acquire, refresh, find, remember, recognise, bring, get, forget, recall, recognize, recollect, access, call up, think



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