1. To cease permanently from productivity. 2. To cease working permanently and leave the employment sector. 3. To leave a room to go elsewhere for a prolonged period, such as a jury retiring from a courtroom to deliberate privately in the jury room. 4. As applied to bills of exchange, this word is ambiguous. It is commonly used of an indorser who takes up a bill by handing the amount to a transferee, after which the indorser holds the instrument with all his remedies intact. But it is sometimes used of an acceptor, by whom, when a bill is taken up or retired at maturity, it is In effect paid, and all the remedies on it extinguished.