remain

Formsremains, remaining, remained

Pluralremains

1. 1
   stay unchangedverbintransitive

   To continue to be in the same place, state, or condition without changing; to stay or last.

   Prices remain high despite the new policy.

   The temple has remained standing through centuries of war.

   UsageWorks like be, with an adjective or noun after it: remain calm, remain friends. A little more formal than stay.

   Note

   Endurance is the point of this sense: whatever remains lasts, unchanged in place, form or amount. With a place it simply means not leaving. The American novelist Winston Churchill's The Celebrity (1897) has a guest who "could not be induced to remain permanently at Mohair."

2. 2
   be left oververbintransitive

   To be left after others have gone or after the rest has been taken away, used, or destroyed.

   Of the band's original six members, only two remain.

   Once the water drained away, only mud remained.

   UsageOften with only or what: only two remain, what remains of the food.

   Note

   Here the stress falls on what has gone: something remains because the rest was taken, eaten or eliminated. The King James Bible of 1611 shows the same picture in "Gather up the fragments that remain."

3. 3
   leftover partsnounplural

   The parts or pieces of something that are left over after the rest has gone, been used, or been destroyed.

   The remains of the bonfire smoldered into the morning.

   Investigators sifted through the charred remains of the warehouse.

   UsageUsually the remains of something, with are/were: the remains were cleared away. For an amount left over, remainder fits better.

   Similarremnants, ruins, debris, residue, leftovers

4. 4
   still to doverbintransitive

   To be still left to be done, dealt with, or decided by someone.

   Several decisions still remain for the board to make.

   It remained for her to clean up after everyone left.

   UsageOften in it remains to be seen whether something will happen, or it remains for someone to do something.

   Note

   Here the verb looks forward to something not yet done, often through an impersonal it. What waits is a task or an outcome, not a physical thing left lying about. That is the quickest way to tell it from the "left behind" meaning.

5. 5
   dead bodynounplural

   What is left of a person's body once life has ended; a corpse or bodily relics.

   Her remains were laid to rest beside her parents.

   Archaeologists uncovered the remains of a man buried thousands of years ago.

   UsageGoes with are/were: her remains were buried. Human remains is the usual phrase for a body found or dug up.

   Similarbody, corpse, bones, cadaver

   Note

   One word covers both a body newly dead and bones long reduced to relics. That range is why it serves equally at a graveside and at an archaeological dig, where corpse would sound too blunt or simply wrong.

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