DictionaryAI

reside

verb
ri-ZYD/ɹɪˈzaɪd/

Formsresides, residing, resided

3 meanings of reside

Practice

  1. 1
    verbintransitive
    To live or dwell in a place permanently or for a considerable time; to have one's settled home somewhere.

    Several retired diplomats reside in the quiet neighborhood near the embassy.

    The artist resided in Paris for most of the 1920s.

    Similarlive, dwell, stay, lodge

    Note

    The everyday sense, and one the Latin pictures as a body sitting down to stay: resideō, from re- "back" and sedeō "sit". The verb takes in or at (the men resided in a huge bunk house; he resides at his parents' house), and it implies lasting presence rather than a visit. In Measure for Measure, Shakespeare spells it recide and uses it for remaining, after death, in a region of thick-ribbed ice.

  2. 2
    verbintransitive
    To be present or based in something as an inherent quality, power, or attribute; to inhere.

    Under the Constitution, sovereignty resides in the people.

    The team's strength is widely thought to reside in its disciplined defense.

    Similarlie, rest, inhere, dwell

    Note

    Here the subject is a quality or power rather than a person, and the verb takes in: sovereignty resides in the people, strength in a defense. Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale places thought itself this way: cogitation resides not in the man who does not think. What separates it from the "dwell" meaning is the subject. People reside in places, and attributes reside in the things that have them.

  3. 3
    verbintransitive
    To sink down and come to rest, in the way sediment settles.

    Similarsettle, subside

    Note

    The seated image behind the "dwell" meaning is taken literally here, as a sinking down to rest. William Congreve's The Birth of the Muse turns it on the sea: once the winds are hushed, every rolling surge resides in peace. Read it as subsiding, not living somewhere. It describes a calm settling, close kin to sediment coming to rest in still water.

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of reside apart? Answer 2 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origin

From Middle English residen, from Old French resider, from Latin resideō ("remain behind, reside, dwell"), formed from re- ("back") plus sedeō ("sit").