retract

A retract means to pull back or take something away from its current position. Imagine taking your feet off the gas pedal and allowing a machine to slow down - it's retracted speed.

When we say someone has retracted a statement, it usually means they've taken back what they said before. For example, if you made a joke about someone being late but later realized it was actually true, you might retract your comment and apologize for hurting their feelings. Sometimes people retract things they wrote online because it's easy to misinterpret or take out of context. Even politicians can retract statements if they realize they were incorrect or didn't think them through carefully enough.