NASM 2.05 based x86 Instruction Reference[ch148]
A.5.127 IRET, IRETW, IRETD: Return from Interrupt IRET ; CF [8086] IRETW ; o16 CF [8086] IRETD ; o32 CF [386] IRET returns from an interrupt (hardware or software) by means of popping IP (or EIP), CS and the flags off the stack and then continuing execution from the new CS:IP. IRETW pops IP, CS and the flags as 2 bytes each, taking 6 bytes off the stack in total. IRETD pops EIP as 4 bytes, pops a further 4 bytes of which the top two are discarded and the bottom two go into CS, and pops the flags as 4 bytes as well, taking 12 bytes off the stack. IRET is a shorthand for either IRETW or IRETD, depending on the default BITS setting at the time.