resign - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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.

Richard Nixon resigning from the U.S. presidency. As of 2024, Richard Nixon is the only U.S. President to resign from office.

resign (third-person singular simple present resigns, present participle resigning, simple past and past participle resigned)

  1. (transitive) To give up; to relinquish ownership of. [from 14th c.]
  2. (transitive) To hand over (something to someone), place into the care or control of another.
  3. (transitive or intransitive) To voluntarily leave (a job or position), in particular a hard-fought position of high status. [from 14th c.]
    Synonym: vacate
    I am resigning in protest of the unfair treatment of our employees.
    He resigned the crown to follow his heart.
    • 1974 August 8, Richard Nixon, 2:30 from the start, in Richard Nixon's resignation speech‎[1], CBSN:
      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.
  4. (transitive) To submit passively; to give up as hopeless or inevitable. [from 15th c.]
    He had no choice but to resign the game and let his opponent become the champion.
    • 1996, Robin Buss, The Count of Monte Cristo, translation of, Alexandre Dumas, Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, 2003 Penguin edition, →ISBN, page 394 [2]:
      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?

to give something up or relinquish

quit a job or position

to give up

From re- + sign.

resign (third-person singular simple present resigns, present participle resigning, simple past and past participle resigned)

  1. (proscribed) Alternative spelling of re-sign.
    • 2020, Kevin McCarthy, mutt 2.0.0 released, mutt-announce mailing list, November 7 2020
      Lastly, a note that I have resigned my GPG key to extend the expiration date.

The spelling without the hyphen results in a heteronym and is usually avoided.