Dictionary

retractate en · VERB

Etymology

From Latin retractatus, past participle of retractare. See retract.

Meanings

1. (obsolete) To retract; to recant.
   • in her retractated version Miss Anscombe rejects this kind of argument and, not paying regard to the logical difference between predicates and individuals just pointed to, infers that there 'is no ground for a distinction of types of object'. 1989, Erik Stenius, Critical Essays - Volume 45, page 251:
   • St. Augustines authoritie you let slip denying him a fit Maister to follow, you say he might retractate this, but neither you doe nor can show that he did retractate it. 1615, John Ainsworth (Prisoner in Newgate.), The Trying Out of the Truth, page 112:
   • Saint Augustine was not afraid to exhort S. Hierome to a palinodia or recantation; the same S. Augustine was not ashamed to retractate, we might say revoke, many things that had passed him, and doth even glory that he seeth his infirmities. 1888, John Read Dore, editor, Old Bibles, page 370:
   • It is true my labors are most set to have those works, which I formerly published, as that of Advancement of Learning, that of Henry VII., that of the Essays, being retractate, and made more perfect, well translated into Latin by the help of some good pens , which forsake me not. 1623, Francis Bacon, Letter to Tobie Matthew:
   • For that purpose an examination of passages which are suspected of being "retractated" is necessary to determine what sort of passages suffer generally at the hands of the retractator. 1920, Helen Emma Wieand Cole, Deception in Plautus: A Study in the Technique of Roman Comedy, page 154:

Forms