Definition of "withdrawal" []

• The act or process of withdrawing, as: (noun)
• A retreat or retirement. (noun)
• Retreat of a military force in the face of enemy attack or after a defeat. (noun)
• Detachment, as from social or emotional involvement. (noun)
• A removal from a place or position of something that has been deposited. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "And the deadline Obama set to begin withdrawal is nine months away."
• "The analogy of giving more alcohol to an alcoholic in withdrawal is quite apt."
• "Instead, it is a troubled and uncertain withdrawal from the mimetic closure of defensive polemic and sympathetic attachmentfor the sake of something aesthetic."