What does retrying mean?
“Retrying” means making another attempt after an initial effort has failed, been interrupted, or produced an unsatisfactory result. It is the present participle of “retry” and is especially common in descriptions of technology, communications, procedures, and personal perseverance. For example, a program may be “retrying” a network connection after a timeout, while a person may keep retrying a difficult task after an initial failure. The word carries a practical, determined tone: it suggests persistence and the expectation that another attempt may succeed. It can also have a technical meaning when it describes software, devices, or systems automatically repeating an operation that did not immediately meet the required conditions. In everyday use, “retrying” is more vivid than simply repeating because it explicitly includes the idea of an earlier unsuccessful attempt.
verbTrying something again after it has failed or been unsuccessful. It refers to making a further attempt to complete an action or achieve a result.
- Making another attempt after an initial attempt has failed or been unsuccessful.
"After the connection failed, she kept retrying the download until the file was successfully transferred."
"The payment system is temporarily unavailable, so the application is retrying the transaction."
"Rather than abandoning the experiment, the researchers continued retrying it with small adjustments to the procedure."
The word “retrying” captures the ordinary human instinct to give a failed attempt another chance.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does retrying come from?
“Retry” was formed in English in the 19th century from the prefix “re-,” meaning again, and “try.” “Try” itself comes through Anglo-French and Old French from a Germanic root related to modern English “trouble” and “tribulation.” The modern form “retrying” developed as the regular present-participle form of “retry,” following the same productive pattern as “retry,” “retried,” and “retries.”
Related word forms
How retrying is actually used
“Retrying” is the present participle and gerund of “retry” and is common in technical, operational, and everyday contexts. It often implies repeated attempts after a failure, delay, or interruption.