How to spell retract

hear itre·tract/rɪ'trækt/verbHidden vowels

What it means: To pull back or withdraw something.

In a sentence: The turtle can retract its head into its shell.

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as retrakt or retracte.

Same family: retraction, retractor, contract, attract, detract. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Retract” comes from Latin ‘re-’ meaning ‘back’ and ‘trahere’ meaning ‘to pull or draw.’ The same root ‘tract’ appears in words like ‘tractor,’ which literally is a machine that ‘pulls.’

Patterns it uses: Prefixes keep every letter

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You will hear the word and a sentence. Type it and press Enter. Then four more words from the same level, so you know where you stand.

Words like this

tractor · extract · subtract · distract · reject

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