recule

present singular third person recules · participle present reculing · participle past reculed · past reculed

1. obsoleteTo recoil or retreat; to draw back.

   And forced them, however strong and stout They were, as well approv'd in many a doubt, Backe to recule

   1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   2 more examples

   The Flemmynges began to be abasshed and to be discomfyted, and began to recule backe, and to fall one upon another.

   1525, Jean Froissart, translated by Sir John Bourchier, The Chronicle of Froissart - Volume 3, page 374

   Then being in Auguste, he came and campid his hole hooste in an ylande in the water of Barrowe, and dayly wolde come into the bordures of thErle of Ossories cuntrey, and sawe moche people dayly in ordre of battaile, and then would recule to their campe.

   1546, Great Britain. Record Commission, State Papers: pt. III. Correspondence between the governments of England and Ireland, 1515-1546, page 250