What's the difference between attract and retract?

Attract


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To draw to, or cause to tend to; esp. to cause to approach, adhere, or combine; or to cause to resist divulsion, separation, or decomposition.
  • (v. t.) To draw by influence of a moral or emotional kind; to engage or fix, as the mind, attention, etc.; to invite or allure; as, to attract admirers.
  • (n.) Attraction.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Osteoporosis and its treatment have attracted much attention in recent years, especially since the widespread recognition of its association with the menopause.
  • (2) The last stems from trends such as declining birth rate, an increasingly mobile society, diminished importance of the nuclear family, and the diminishing attractiveness of professions involved with providing maintenance care.
  • (3) In view of many ethical and legal problems, connected in some countries with obtaining human fetal tissue for transplantation, cross-species transplants would be an attractive alternative.
  • (4) So I am, of course, intrigued about the city’s newest tourist attraction: a hangover bar, open at weekends, in which sufferers can come in and have a bit of a lie down in soothingly subdued lighting, while sipping vitamin-enriched smoothies.
  • (5) Older women and those who present more archetypically as butch have an easier time of it (because older women in general are often sidelined by the press and society) and because butch women are often viewed as less attractive and tantalising to male editors and readers.
  • (6) Synthetic N-formylmethionyl peptides are chemotactic attractants for human polymorphonuclear leukocytes.
  • (7) The Chinese model of development, which combines political repression and economic liberalism, has attracted numerous admirers in the developing world.
  • (8) But with the advantages and attractions that Scotland already has, and, more importantly, taking into account the morale boost, the sheer energisation of a whole people that would come about because we would finally have our destiny at least largely back in our own hands again – I think we could do it.
  • (9) A viral aetiology for this group of diseases remains an attractive but unsubstantiated hypothesis.
  • (10) The strongest field distortions and attractive forces occurred with 17-7PH stainless steel clips.
  • (11) Bar manager Joe Mattheisen, 66, who has worked at the hole-in-the-wall bar since 1997, said the bar has attracted younger, straighter crowds in recent years.
  • (12) As for fish attractiveness, motion, freshness, size, color and species were found as important parameters in the food-preference mechanism.
  • (13) "That attracted all the wrong sorts for a few years, so the clubs put their prices up to keep them out and the prices never came down again."
  • (14) His coding talent attracted attention early: a music-recommendation program he wrote as a teenager brought approaches from both Microsoft and AOL.
  • (15) In a BBC Radio 4 performance that attempts to underline his status as a normal bloke – although he admits he was too "square" to attract a girlfriend at university – Miliband's luxury item is a weekly chicken tikka masala from his local north London Indian takeaway.
  • (16) But it has already attracted attention for paying some deferred bonuses early in the US to avoid a hike in tax rates.
  • (17) Cuadrilla's admission comes after more than a fortnight's protests at the Balcombe site, which have attracted international attention.
  • (18) Although selenium deficiency in livestock is consequently now rare in Oregon, selenium-deficient soils and attendant selenium deficiency conditions have been reported near the Kesterson Wildlife Refuge in the Northern part of the San Joaquin Valley, California, where, paradoxically, selenium toxicity in wildfowl, nesting near evaporation ponds, occurred and attracted wide attention.
  • (19) It has been a place of pilgrimage for many centuries and a tourist attraction probably since Roman times.
  • (20) A nine-year-old Scottish girl who attracted two million readers to a blog documenting her school lunches , consisting of unappealing and unhealthy dishes served up to pupils, has been forced to end the project after the council banned her from taking pictures of the food in school.

Retract


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To draw back; to draw up or shorten; as, the cat can retract its claws; to retract a muscle.
  • (v. t.) To withdraw; to recall; to disavow; to recant; to take back; as, to retract an accusation or an assertion.
  • (v. t.) To take back,, as a grant or favor previously bestowed; to revoke.
  • (v. i.) To draw back; to draw up; as, muscles retract after amputation.
  • (v. i.) To take back what has been said; to withdraw a concession or a declaration.
  • (n.) The pricking of a horse's foot in nailing on a shoe.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Brain damage may be followed by a number of dynamic events including reactive synaptogenesis, rerouting of axons to unusual locations and altered axon retraction processes.
  • (2) Tottenham Hotspur’s £400m redevelopment of White Hart Lane could include a retractable grass pitch as the club explores the possibility of hosting a new NFL franchise.
  • (3) Any MP who claims this is not statutory regulation is a liar, and should be forced to retract and apologise, or face a million pound fine.
  • (4) During the first 15 to 20 min of metamorphosis the larval arms are retracted and resorbed into the aboral surface of the juvenile.
  • (5) • Written, oral and video statements of self-incrimination and self-renunciation by the detainees, apparently induced by the authorities, have been released through official media channels (for example, lawyer Zhang Kai was induced to make such a statement, which he later retracted).
  • (6) Duane's retraction syndrome is a congenital eye movement disorder characterized by a deficiency of abduction, mild limitation of adduction, with retraction and narrowing of the palpebral fissure on attempted adduction.
  • (7) Axonal trees display differential growth during development or regeneration; that is, some branches stop growing and often retract while other branches continue to grow and form stable synaptic connections.
  • (8) She said she was not worried by Rubio’s one-time position on his immigration bill, later retracted, that he could not support reform if it included citizenship for gay couples.
  • (9) Useful differential morphological criteria can be: star-like or transverse ring-shaped profile of isolated ulcerations, tubular ileocolic junction with retracted cecum and open valve, and uniformity of lesion in the comprehensive picture of the clinical case.
  • (10) Both require more brain retraction and have greater risk to the facial nerve than the translabyrinthine approach.
  • (11) Unlike posterior tympanoplasty, this technique makes it possible to meticulously remove the osteitic bone invariably found in the facial recess when there is infection of the retraction pocket.
  • (12) In the third patient laparotomy was applied owing to the bleeding from the retracted, cut uterine artery.
  • (13) Because of laboratory and clinical observation that recurrent nerve paralysis retracts the involved vocal cord from the midline, it was proposed that deliberate section of the recurrent nerve would improve the vocal quality of patients with spastic dysphonia.
  • (14) Seven to 30 days following axotomy the volume of the hypoglossal nucleus was significantly diminished, undoubtedly reflecting dendritic retraction (P less than 0.05).
  • (15) Contacts resulting in collapse and retraction were often accompanied by a rapid and transient burst of lamellipodial activity along the neurite 30-50 microns proximal to the retracting growth cone.
  • (16) At three, six, and twelve months after the first operation the development of retraction pockets was also studied.
  • (17) The anchoring wire can also be retracted and repositioned.
  • (18) The right occipital lobe is retracted laterally from the falx cerebri.
  • (19) These experiments demonstrated that accessory abducens is a primary controller of eye retraction through its axons to retractor bulbi.
  • (20) A commercial system for producing retracted compensators has been adapted to suit local needs, and is evaluated here.