Meaning

verb get or find back; recover the use of

verb go for and bring back

verb run after, pick up, and bring to the master

originRecorded in Middle English c. 1410 as retreve (altered to retrive in the 16th century; modern form is from c. 1650), from Middle French retruev-, stem of Old French retrover (“to find again”, modern retrouver), itself from re- (“again”) + trover (“to find”), probably from Vulgar Latin *tropāre (“to compose”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0