resign
verbUK /ɹɪˈzaɪn/
Etymology From Anglo-Norman resigner, Middle French resigner, and its source, Latin resignāre (“to unseal, annul, assign, resign”), from re- + signāre (“to seal, stamp”). Piecewise doublet of re-sign.
1
To give up; to relinquish ownership of.
- And if the perfection of well-speaking might bring any glorie sutable unto a great personage, Scipio and Lelius would never have resigned the honour of their Comedies[…]unto an Affrican servant[…].1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 39, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
2
To hand over (something to someone), place into the care or control of another.
3
To voluntarily leave (a job or position), in particular a hard-fought position of high status.
- I am resigning in protest of the unfair treatment of our employees.
- He resigned the crown to follow his heart.
1 more example
- To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home. Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.1974 August 8, Richard Nixon, 2:30 from the start, in Richard Nixon's resignation speech, CBSN:
4
To submit passively; to give up as hopeless or inevitable.
- He had no choice but to resign the game and let his opponent become the champion.
- Here is a man who was resigned to his fate, who was walking to the scaffold and about to die like a coward, that's true, but at least he was about to die without resisting and without recrimination. Do you know what gave him that much strength? Do you know what consoled him? Do you know what resigned him to his fate?1996, Robin Buss, The Count of Monte Cristo, translation of, Alexandre Dumas, Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, 2003 Penguin edition, page 394 http://books.google.com/books?id=QAa5l_8DNbcC&pg=PA394&dq=fate
- Synonyms
- quit
- Derived terms
- resignable, resignation, resignatory, resignee, resigner, resignful, resignment, resign oneself, unresign