retractation

See also: rétractation

English

Etymology

Compare French rétractation, Latin retractatio (“a revision, reconsideration”).

Noun

retractation (countable and uncountable, plural retractations)

1. (archaic) retraction (of something previously said)
   • 1872, Publications of the Narragansett Club: George Fox digg'd out out of his burrowes, page 257:

     […] but while they own what G. Fox hath written, and that he writ it with a perfect spirit: I say untill they do make some Recantation or Retractation: or shew the Reasons why they doe not, H. Norton who keeps more plainly to his Principles is to windward of them, and the Foxians do but strip themselves naked to be more derided and scorned as the more notorious Juglers and Dissemblers .

   • 1903, Henry James, The Ambassadors‎^[1]:

     When he met Strether's eye on such occasions he looked guilty and furtive, fell the next minute into some attitude of retractation.

References

• “retractation”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• reattraction