Verb

(en verb)

To keep in possession or use.

* Milton

Be obedient, and retain / Unalterably firm his love entire.

* 1856 : (Gustave Flaubert), (Madame Bovary), Part III Chapter XI, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

A strange thing was that Bovary, while continually thinking of Emma, was forgetting her. He grew desperate as he felt this image fading from his memory in spite of all efforts to retain it. Yet every night he dreamt of her; it was always the same dream. He drew near her, but when he was about to clasp her she fell into decay in his arms.

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)

, title=(The China Governess) , chapter=1 citation , passage=The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, so that the actual structure which had come down to posterity retained the secret magic of a promise rather than the overpowering splendour of a great architectural achievement.}}

To keep in one's pay or service.

* Addison

A Benedictine convent has now retained the most learned father of their order to write in its defence.

To employ by paying a retainer.

To hold secure.

(obsolete) To restrain; to prevent.

(obsolete) To belong; to pertain.

* Boyle

A somewhat languid relish, retaining to bitterness.

Verb

(restor)

To reestablish, or bring back into existence.

to restore harmony among those who are at variance

He restored my lost faith in him by doing a good deed.

To bring back to a previous condition or state.

* Bible, Mark iii. 5

and his hand was restored whole as the other

* Prior

our fortune restored after the severest afflictions

To give or bring back (that which has been lost or taken); to bring back to the owner; to replace.

* Bible, Genesis xx. 7

Now therefore restore the man his wife.

* Milton

Loss of Eden, till one greater man / Restore us, and regain the blissful seat.

* Dryden

The father banished virtue shall restore .

To give in place of, or as restitution for.

* Bible, Exodus xxii. 1

He shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.

(computing) To recover (data, etc.) from a backup.

There was a crash last night, and we're still restoring the file system.

(obsolete) To make good; to make amends for.

* Shakespeare

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, / All losses are restored , and sorrows end.