recede implies a gradual withdrawing from a forward or high fixed point in time or space.
the flood waters gradually receded
retreat implies withdrawal from a point or position reached.
retreating soldiers
retract implies drawing back from an extended position.
a cat retracting its claws
back is used with up, down, out, or off to refer to any retrograde motion.
backed off on the throttle
Examples of recede in a Sentence
Verb (1)
the sound of sirens receded as the fire engines roared off into the distance
after the rain stops, the floodwaters should gradually recede
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Verb
Mayor Todd Gloria has latched onto tough-on-crime rhetoric throughout his reelection campaign, even as crime in the city recedes from its pandemic-era spike.—Andrew Keatts, Axios, 4 Nov. 2024 Insular online-community news events or temporary main characters who get plucked by the algorithm and placed all over our feeds for a few days before receding back into the shadows.—Kate Lindsay, Vulture, 1 Nov. 2024 About 13,000 years ago, just as the Ice Age was receding, people across North America from Washington state to Texas and Florida — and now Michigan — adhered to a pretty strict tool manufacturing sequence to make Clovis points for several hundred years.—Joshua Rapp Learn, Discover Magazine, 29 Oct. 2024 While upside risks to inflation are receding around the world, threats to economic growth are multiplying, according to the IMF.—Hanna Ziady, CNN, 22 Oct. 2024 See all Example Sentences for recede
Word History
Etymology
Verb (1)
Middle English, from Latin recedere to go back, from re- + cedere to go
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