re ‧ trieve /rɪˈtriːv/ BrE AmE verb [transitive]
[ Date: 1400-1500 ; Language: Old French ; Origin: retrover 'to find again' , from trover 'to find' ]
1 . formal to find something and bring it back ⇨ recover :
She bent down to retrieve her earring.
retrieve something from something
It took four days to retrieve all the bodies from the crash.
2 . technical to get back information that has been stored in the memory of a computer:
The new version of the software automatically retrieves digital information.
3 . retrieve a situation British English to make a situation satisfactory again after there has been a serious mistake or problem:
The general made one last desperate effort to retrieve the situation.
—retrievable adjective