How to Use retrench in a Sentence

retrench

verb
  • When the economy slowed, the company was forced to retrench.
  • But Wayfair is by far the biggest area tech firm to retrench.
    — Jon Chesto, BostonGlobe.com, 19 Aug. 2022
  • The tech sector goes on a hiring spree and then has to retrench with thousands of layoffs.
    — Suzanne Bates, Quartz, 2 May 2023
  • Then, an otherwise tight job market would start to crack and consumers would retrench.
    — Enda Curran, Fortune, 7 Aug. 2019
  • Schools are hesitant to grow too fast for fear they’ll be forced to retrench once today’s crisis ebbs.
    — Maria Flynn, Forbes.com, 14 Apr. 2025
  • The company had to retrench after the city ordered all scooters off the road.
    — Bloomberg, Fortune, 28 June 2018
  • And just as some employers have started to retrench, more people are looking for jobs.
    — Lydia Depillis, New York Times, 7 Apr. 2023
  • None of this is evidence that the United States ought to retrench.
    — Catherine Rampell, The Denver Post, 7 Feb. 2017
  • There’s a growing sense both abroad and at home that the United States is retrenching.
    — Foreign Affairs, 17 Oct. 2016
  • Cowen justified the move as a way to cut losses and retrench in a smaller city with different needs.
    — Contributing Writer, NOLA.com, 9 May 2018
  • Usually, the best move is to retreat and retrench, to find ways to reduce scope without going too small.
    — Todd Vanderwerff, Vox, 3 May 2018
  • But the business has retrenched recently.
    — Michael Butler, Miami Herald, 9 Oct. 2025
  • Trucking firms appear to be retrenching after a long stretch of expansion last year.
    — Jennifer Smith, WSJ, 3 May 2019
  • But as cash flow and profits have evaporated, GE has been forced to retrench.
    — Thomas Gryta, WSJ, 28 Oct. 2018
  • Networks and streamers, which have spent the past few years retrenching, may be regaining their appetite for risk.
    — Scott Roxborough, HollywoodReporter, 27 Mar. 2026
  • If the United States retrenched, the world would surely see more such behavior, not less.
    — Jonathan B. Petkun, Foreign Affairs, 18 June 2024
  • Surging infections caused by the Delta variant has caused some investors to retrench.
    — Jeffrey Schulze, Forbes, 21 Sep. 2021
  • But what if the mission changes, and the organization turns from all-out going for it to a form of retrenching?
    — Jim Alexander, Oc Register, 5 Feb. 2026
  • Hamas would use the quieting of the fighting to retrench and rearm, extending the war instead of ending it.
    — New York Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News, 21 Feb. 2024
  • This is not the strategy of a retrenching United States.
    — Rebeccah Heinrichs, Foreign Affairs, 15 Dec. 2025
  • There has been a lot of talk recently about Saudi Arabia retrenching from sports.
    — Andreas Wiseman, Deadline, 13 May 2026
  • The next day the fire will grow to 1,500 acres and the smokejumpers are forced to retrench, moving from offense to defense.
    — Mark Jenkins, National Geographic, 12 June 2019
  • Even Selfridges has been forced to retrench, announcing 450 job cuts last month.
    — Hanna Ziady, CNN, 18 Aug. 2020
  • Last year, the microblogging platform retrenched 90% of its staff in the country, leaving only a dozen on the payroll.
    — Niharika Sharma, Quartz, 17 Feb. 2023
  • But the decision to retrench marks a setback for Cisco, which has been trying to boost sales of software services over hardware.
    — Aaron Tilley, WSJ, 28 Dec. 2020
  • At the time, Iger said Disney had been pumping out too many shows and movies to compete with Netflix and needed to retrench.
    — Meg James, Los Angeles Times, 9 Apr. 2026
  • The spurt in infections across the globe means health officials will have little time to retrench and cope with what could be a taxing winter for health-care systems around the world.
    — Tribune News Service, al, 11 Oct. 2020
  • And with Ukrainian troops focusing on Lyman, Russian units have had time to retrench farther to the east.
    — Natalia Yermak Tyler Hicks, New York Times, 26 Sep. 2022
  • At the time, the car industry was in the process of retrenching after the economic meltdown of 2008.
    — Joshua Davis, WIRED, 27 Sep. 2010
  • Rady Children’s is not alone in deciding to retrench gender-affirming care in the face of heavy federal pressure.
    — Mona Darwish, Oc Register, 24 Jan. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'retrench.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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