retrieval

/rɪˈtrivəl/

/rɛˈtrivəl/

Other forms: retrievals

The act of bringing something back is called retrieval. When you throw a tennis ball to Fido and he brings it back to you, that's retrieval.

When you lose something and get it back, that's retrieval, whether it's a tote bag you accidentally left at the library or a file you can't find on your computer. In fact, the word retrieval is a common one in computer science, meaning "the act of accessing information." The word comes from the verb retrieve, which was first used in the fifteenth century to describe a hunting dog bringing a dead bird back from a field.

Definitions of retrieval

1. noun

   the act of regaining or saving something lost (or in danger of becoming lost)
   synonyms: recovery

   types:

   repossession

   the action of regaining possession (especially the seizure of collateral securing a loan that is in default)

   reclamation

   the recovery of useful substances from waste products

   deliverance, delivery, rescue, saving

   recovery or preservation from loss or danger

   ransom

   the act of freeing from captivity or punishment

   recapture, retaking

   the act of taking something back

   lifesaving

   saving the lives of drowning persons

   redemption, salvation

   (theology) the act of delivering from sin or saving from evil

   reclamation, reformation

   rescuing from error and returning to a rightful course

   salvage

   the act of rescuing a ship or its crew or its cargo from a shipwreck or a fire

   salvage

   the act of saving goods or property that were in danger of damage or destruction

   salvation

   saving someone or something from harm or from an unpleasant situation

   search and rescue mission

   a rescue mission to search for survivors and to rescue them

   type of:

   act, deed, human action, human activity

   something that people do or cause to happen
2. noun

   the mental process of accessing information stored in one's memory
   “my retrieval of people's names is very poor”

   type of:

   memory, remembering

   the cognitive processes whereby past experience is remembered
3. noun

   (computer science) the operation of accessing information from the computer's memory
   types:

   stovepiping

   retrieval of information from unconnected databases; the situation that exists when it is necessary to climb out of one database in order to climb down into another; sometimes used for protection against wandering hackers

   type of:

   computer operation, machine operation

   an elementary operation that a computer is designed and built to perform