retrieval

American  

[ri-tree-vuhl] / rɪˈtri vəl /

noun

1. the act of retrieving.

2. the chance of recovery or restoration.

   Sadly, many aboriginal languages have been lost beyond retrieval.

3. Psychology. the act or process of accessing information previously encoded and stored in memory.

   The article explores the use of picture matching tasks to assist in word retrieval in aphasic patients.

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retrieval British  

/ rɪˈtriːvəl /

noun

1. the act or process of retrieving

2. the possibility of recovery, restoration, or rectification (esp in the phrase beyond retrieval )

3. a computer filing operation that recalls records or other data from a file

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Etymology

Origin of retrieval

First recorded in 1635–45; retrieve + -al ²

Example Sentences

Marvell’s chips and accelerators should be even more valuable in a world driven by agentic AI, seeing as the technology requires continuous loops of reasoning, tool use, memory retrieval, and task coordination.

From Barron's • Mar. 30, 2026

Last August, Santos underwent egg retrieval that resulted in three viable embryos.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 3, 2026

"All response teams remain fully engaged in search and retrieval efforts to locate the remaining missing persons," Cebu Mayor Nestor Archival said in a Facebook post on Friday.

From BBC • Jan. 8, 2026

One focus was the hippocampus, a deep-brain region central to memory formation and retrieval and often affected early in neurodegeneration.

From Science Daily • Dec. 9, 2025

Ridgeway worked retrieval, heading north when constables sent word they’d captured a runaway from Virginia or North Carolina.

From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead