RETREATING Synonyms: 78 Similar and Opposite Words

retreating

verb

present participle of retreat

as in withdrawing

to move back or away (as from something difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable) we retreated to the safety of the cellar at the first sign of the tornado

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

as in fleeing

to hasten away from something dangerous or frightening the untried soldiers retreated in humiliating disarray almost as soon as the enemy's onslaught began

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of retreating Gabriel Moreno hit an RBI single in the fourth and, after Kyle Hart walked the bases loaded in the sixth, Perdomo cleared them with a double that bounced off the glove of retreating center fielder Jackson Merrill and then off the padded fence. — ABC News, 26 Sep. 2026 The brand has been retreating by the month back to its roots in Florida. — Joe Kinsey Outkick, FOXNews.com, 25 Sep. 2026 In doing so, Congress would be retreating from the notion that Medicare can control how many services physicians provide on a national basis, an idea that has undergirded Medicare’s doctor payments for decades. — John Wilkerson, STAT, 24 Sep. 2026 After leaving The Cosby Show and A Different World, Bonet divorced Kravitz, retreating from the spotlight and focusing on raising daughter Zoë. — Eric King, Entertainment Weekly, 24 Sep. 2026 The Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland is now retreating up to 164 feet a day, Otosaka said. — Seth Borenstein, Los Angeles Times, 16 Sep. 2026 The American has the ball in the centre, with Leeds attacking at pace and Liverpool retreating. — Beren Cross, New York Times, 14 Sep. 2026 The yield briefly crossed 5% on Monday, its highest level since October 2023, before retreating. — Sean Conlon,chloe Taylor,lee Ying Shan,ananya Chetia, CNBC, 14 Sep. 2026 But Jewish security is not achieved by retreating from the rest of New York. — Mark Treyger, New York Daily News, 8 Sep. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for retreating

Verb

Instead, income taxes are added when withdrawing investments from those accounts.

— Sacbee.com, Sacbee.com, 25 Sep. 2026
Play through the bonus as required before withdrawing any winnings.

— OutKick, FOXNews.com, 24 Sep. 2026

Definition of withdrawing

Verb

Witnesses to the March 8 shooting reported seeing a white Tesla Model 3 with a paper license plate fleeing the scene.

— Nancy Dillon, Rolling Stone, 30 Sep. 2026
Attorneys for Carter, who is Black, have said witnesses saw a White man fleeing the crime scene and that an investigator suppressed evidence that could implicate other suspects, including the victim’s husband, Orla Olesen.

— Landon Mion, FOXNews.com, 30 Sep. 2026

Definition of fleeing

Verb

More experienced tradespeople are retiring, while fewer young workers are entering fields such as welding, electrical work, plumbing, advanced manufacturing, and industrial maintenance.

— Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 30 Sep. 2026
Of the roughly 1,100 allegations against staff members, approximately 320 resulted in an employee resigning or retiring before any final disciplinary action or termination, according to the report.

— Jackson Thompson OutKick, FOXNews.com, 30 Sep. 2026

Definition of retiring

Verb

Now every SaaS company that spent the last three years bolting AI features onto legacy infrastructure just got very expensive news.

— Rafael Flores, Forbes.com, 16 Sep. 2026
San Francisco is still bolting new pieces together, including fitting Mike Evans into the offense on the fly.

— Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 9 Sep. 2026

Definition of bolting

Verb

The victim can be seen running full speed away from a man chasing him down with a knife before escaping into a building in a harrowing video taken from a surveillance camera, posted on X by Crown Heights Shmira.

— Roni Jacobson, New York Daily News, 24 Sep. 2026
There’s no escaping the feeling of this mass, and no magic feats of engineering, like with Rivian or various German automakers, will mask this.

— Joel Feder, The Drive, 24 Sep. 2026

Definition of escaping

Verb

The finding resolves a long-running question about the material’s electrical behavior.

— Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 26 Sep. 2026
By 2020, however, it had been reduced to a century-and-a-half-old ruin running a mile along the River Lee and in the midst of condo conversion.

— Robert Sullivan, Vogue, 26 Sep. 2026