RETI'RE, verb intransitive

1. To withdraw; to retreat; to go from company or from a public place into privacy; as, to retire from the world; to retire from notice.

2. To retreat from action or danger; as, to retire from battle.

3. To withdraw from a public station. General Washington, in 1796, retired to private life.

4. To break up, as a company or assembly. The company retired at eleven o'clock.

5. To depart or withdraw for safety or for pleasure. Men retire from the town in summer for health and pleasure. But in South Carolina, the planters retire from their estates to Charleston, or to an isle near the town.

6. To recede; to fall back. The shore of the sea retires in bays and gulfs.

RETI'RE, verb transitive To withdraw; to take away.

He retired himself, his wife and children into a forest.

As when the sun is present all the year, and never doth retire his golden ray.

[This transitive use of retire is now obsolete.]

RETI'RE, noun

1. Retreat; recession; a withdrawing. obsolete

2. Retirement; place of privacy. obsolete