mindmap
root((TRACT))
traction
The friction that allows a moving thing to move over a surface without slipping.
🌱The spinning wheels were getting no traction on the ice, and we began to slip backward down the hill. 🌳A tractor is something that pulls something else. We usually use the word for a piece of farm machinery, but it's also the name of the part of a big truck that includes the engine and the cab. Tractors get terrific traction, because of their powerful engines and the deep ridges on their huge wheels. A cross-country skier needs traction to kick herself forward, but doesn't want it to slow her down when she's gliding, so the bottom of the skis may have a "fish-scale" surface that permits both of these at the same time. retract 1、 To pull back （something） into something larger.
2、 To take back （something said or written）.
🌱She was forced to retract her comment about her opponent after it was condemned in the press. 🌳The prefix re- （"back"） gives retract the meaning of "draw back." Just as a cat retracts its claws into its paws when they aren't being used, a public figure may issue a retraction in order to say that he or she no longer wants to say something that has just been said. But it's sometimes hard to know what a retraction means: Was the original statement an error or an outright lie? Sometimes a politician even has to retract something that everyone actually assumes is the truth. Thousands of citizens were forced to publicly retract their "wrong" ideas by the Soviet government in the 1930s and the Chinese government in the 1960s. Someone wrongly accused may demand a retraction from his accuser—though today it seems more likely that he'll just go ahead and sue. protracted Drawn out, continued, or extended.
🌱No one was looking forward to a protracted struggle for custody of the baby. 🌳With its prefix pro-, "forward," protracted usually applies to something drawn out forward in time. A protracted strike may cripple a company; a protracted rainy spell may rot the roots of vegetables; and a protracted lawsuit occasionally outlives the parties involved. Before the invention of the polio vaccines, polio's many victims had no choice but to suffer a protracted illness and its aftereffects. intractable Not easily handled, led, taught, or controlled.
🌱Corruption in the army was the country's intractable problem, and for many years all foreign aid had ended up in the colonels' pockets. 🌳Intractable simply means "untreatable," and even comes from the same root. The word may describe both people and conditions. A cancer patient may suffer intractable pain that doctors are unable to treat. An intractable alcoholic goes back to the bottle immediately after "drying out." Homelessness, though it hardly existed thirty years ago, is now sometimes regarded as an intractable problem.
🌱The spinning wheels were getting no traction on the ice, and we began to slip backward down the hill. 🌳A tractor is something that pulls something else. We usually use the word for a piece of farm machinery, but it's also the name of the part of a big truck that includes the engine and the cab. Tractors get terrific traction, because of their powerful engines and the deep ridges on their huge wheels. A cross-country skier needs traction to kick herself forward, but doesn't want it to slow her down when she's gliding, so the bottom of the skis may have a "fish-scale" surface that permits both of these at the same time. retract 1、 To pull back （something） into something larger.
2、 To take back （something said or written）.
🌱She was forced to retract her comment about her opponent after it was condemned in the press. 🌳The prefix re- （"back"） gives retract the meaning of "draw back." Just as a cat retracts its claws into its paws when they aren't being used, a public figure may issue a retraction in order to say that he or she no longer wants to say something that has just been said. But it's sometimes hard to know what a retraction means: Was the original statement an error or an outright lie? Sometimes a politician even has to retract something that everyone actually assumes is the truth. Thousands of citizens were forced to publicly retract their "wrong" ideas by the Soviet government in the 1930s and the Chinese government in the 1960s. Someone wrongly accused may demand a retraction from his accuser—though today it seems more likely that he'll just go ahead and sue. protracted Drawn out, continued, or extended.
🌱No one was looking forward to a protracted struggle for custody of the baby. 🌳With its prefix pro-, "forward," protracted usually applies to something drawn out forward in time. A protracted strike may cripple a company; a protracted rainy spell may rot the roots of vegetables; and a protracted lawsuit occasionally outlives the parties involved. Before the invention of the polio vaccines, polio's many victims had no choice but to suffer a protracted illness and its aftereffects. intractable Not easily handled, led, taught, or controlled.
🌱Corruption in the army was the country's intractable problem, and for many years all foreign aid had ended up in the colonels' pockets. 🌳Intractable simply means "untreatable," and even comes from the same root. The word may describe both people and conditions. A cancer patient may suffer intractable pain that doctors are unable to treat. An intractable alcoholic goes back to the bottle immediately after "drying out." Homelessness, though it hardly existed thirty years ago, is now sometimes regarded as an intractable problem.
TRACT comes from trahere, the Latin verb meaning "drag or draw." Something attractive draws us toward it. Something distracting pulls your attention away. And when you extract something from behind the sofa, you drag it out.🌸