1. The act of regaining or saving something lost (or in danger of becoming lost)
   "Data retrieval from the damaged hard drive was successful";
   - recovery
    
2. (computing) the operation of accessing information from the computer's memory
   "The database retrieval was slower than expected"
    
3. The cognitive operation of accessing information in memory
   "my retrieval of people's names is very poor"

Derived forms: retrievals

Type of: act, computer operation, deed, human action, human activity, machine operation, memory, remembering

Encyclopedia: Retrieval