verb
withdraw
To remove, take back, or move away from a place, activity, or relationship.
Where it comes from
Withdraw ordinarily means to remove, take back, or move away from a place, activity, or relationship. Middle English withdrawen combined with, in its older directional sense of away or back, with drawen, to pull. The construction therefore meant to draw away, draw back, or remove. Modern with usually suggests company, so withdraw can look as if it should mean pull together. The compound instead preserves an older sense also visible in withhold and a related oppositional sense in withstand.
How the meaning developed
Its literal drawing back broadened to leaving, retracting, and taking money from deposit.
Sources
- Withdraw Definition & Meaning
- Withdraw: Etymology, Origin & Meaning
- With-, away, back, against, in opposition to
Definitions adapted from Open English WordNet where applicable. License and attribution. Word-history text comes from Lexifour’s sourced social research; pages are assembled automatically, not individually fact-checked on every update.
Updated 2026-10-05. Report a correction.