What's the difference between detract and retract?

Detract


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To take away; to withdraw.
  • (v. t.) To take credit or reputation from; to defame.
  • (v. i.) To take away a part or something, especially from one's credit; to lessen reputation; to derogate; to defame; -- often with from.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Unethical conduct in research can be divided into five categories: 1) falsification of data, in which the researcher manipulates results, provides data without experimentation, or biases the results to give a false impression of their value; 2) failure to credit others (former colleagues, students, associates) for research results or ideas; 3) plagiarism, use of other's published material (ideas, graphs, or tabular data) without permission or credit; 4) conflicts of commitment or interest in which work or ownership in a private firm in some way conflicts or detracts from the duties to the institution they represent or allows private gain through the individual's employment at the institution; 5) biased experimental design or interpretation of data to support public or private groups that have provided financial support for research.
  • (2) But over the Christmas period the Cahuzac story has continued to dominate headlines as some newspapers suggested Hollande might have a cabinet reshuffle both to detract from the Mediapart allegations and to draw a line under government disagreements over the handling of France's crisis-hit steel industry.
  • (3) The resulting disturbing, violent or disruptive behavior will severely detract from the quality of life the patient and family can share together.
  • (4) Neither TMP-SMZ nor amoxicillin produced hematologic effects that would detract from their continued use in children with infections caused by antibiotic-susceptible organisms.
  • (5) The search for new hypoxic cell radiosensitizers must not detract from the fact that a sensitizer of aerobic cells to low radiation doses is needed.
  • (6) But Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, warned that although the prosecutions of figures such as Savile were important, there was a danger they could detract from a pervasive problem.
  • (7) The majority of mothers do believe their child, with difficult situations and other family stressors occasionally detracting from a mother's willingness to accept the report.
  • (8) The study confirms that a communal orientation enhances satisfaction with a best friendship and that conflict and negativity detract from it.
  • (9) Look further and you see people in faked approximations of designer logos – that they've been traduced doesn't detract from their meaning; it gives them a new story.
  • (10) This should not detract from the fact that autoantibodies are a common secondary phenomenon which plays an important part in maintaining tissue microdebridement.
  • (11) Based on published articles and communication with representatives from each country, we examined whether the organization and conduct of these conferences in nine countries (United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) enhanced or detracted from achieving the stated conference goals and objectives.
  • (12) A medication's perceptual properties may have important and specific meanings for patients or clients that may support or detract from compliance.
  • (13) And none of this, he was convinced, detracted from his commitment to socialism.
  • (14) (tall fescue), and provides biological protection and enhanced fitness to its host, but its anti-mammalian ergot alkaloids detract from the usefulness of tall fescue as forage for livestock.
  • (15) Within the scape of a comparative long-term study between conservative and operative therapy of Perthes'-disease the effort was made to estimate the dimension of the psychic and social detraction in addiction to the method of treatment by a detailed inquiry of 116 patients as well as of their accompanying parents.
  • (16) A wider political solution is required to this crisis, but that does not detract from today’s rescue at sea.
  • (17) Of course, this is dreadful for the families involved, no one would want to detract from their distress, but neither should it prevent an objective examination of the complex picture revealed in the statistics.
  • (18) As part of a "health concepts" nursing course, students became much more aware of social, economic, environmental, and cultural factors that either enhanced or detracted from their ability to achieve their ideal life-styles.
  • (19) For anyone who clings to the idea that music can still soundtrack life's most elemental aspects, his answer would be a dream, though that doesn't detract from its sincerity.
  • (20) But Sam Watt of Vyclone, a phone app that encourages audiences to film at concerts and then brings together the footage to create a crowd-sourced video of the event, said that such artists were fighting a losing battle and that filming at concerts enhanced rather than detracted from the experience.

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.