退

Movement away from a center, front, or boundary; a cessation of forward progress.

• Physical/Military: To step back, withdraw, or retreat. The glyph denotes the motion itself; whether the withdrawal is strategic or a rout must be determined by context.
• Political/Official: To resign or withdraw from public service. Frequently functions as a dialectic with 進 (to advance/enter service), potentially signaling a moral protest against corruption or a transition toward retirement and sagehood.
• Natural/Abstract: The waning of intensity or the recession of a physical force (e.g., ebbing tides, the subsiding of a fever, the decline of a state). In these contexts, the movement is often non-volitional.

• Primary Function: Verb.
• Complements: Frequently used as a resultative or directional complement to indicate that an action results in movement backward or away from a source.
• Compounding: In compound forms, the glyph may shift toward an adjectival sense (describing a state of recession) or a nominal sense (the act of withdrawal).

• 退 vs. 隱: 退 refers to the active process of moving away; 隱 refers to the subsequent state of being hidden, secluded, or reclusive. A subject typically withdraws (退) in order to become a recluse (隱).

• Restorative Sense: The meaning "to return something previously given" (refund/return) is characteristic of administrative and later Chinese rather than early classical texts.

Depending on whether the subject is human, military, or natural, appropriate translations include: step back, retreat, resign, recede, subside, or yield.