resign

verb

Sayri-ZYN/ɹɪˈzaɪn/

5 meanings of resign

1
verbtransitive or intransitive
To voluntarily leave a job or position, especially a hard-won one of high status.
The minister resigned her seat amid mounting criticism.
After three decades on the bench, the judge chose to resign.
Similarquit, leave, vacate
Note
Leaving a post is the one meaning that works with or without an object. Used alone, it names the act itself: resigning in protest. With an object, it names what is given up: he resigned the crown, she resigned her seat. Vacate is a close synonym for the transitive use. Richard Nixon's resignation speech of August 8, 1974, belongs to this sense.
2
verbtransitive
To submit passively to something, accepting it as hopeless or inevitable.
We resign ourselves to the outcome whenever the committee overrules us.
Travelers resigned themselves to lengthy delays after the storm.
Similarreconcile, submit, accept
Oppositeresist
Note
Two constructions carry this sense, and both take to. One is the reflexive resign oneself to something. The other is the participle resigned to, as when the condemned man is "resigned to his fate" in Robin Buss's 1996 translation of Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo. In competitive play a bare object survives: to resign the game is to concede defeat outright.
3
verbtransitive
To give up something, relinquishing one's ownership of or claim to it.
Founders sometimes resign their shares to keep the company afloat.
The duke resigned his estates to the crown.
Similarrelinquish, surrender, renounce, cede, forfeit
Oppositeretain, keep
Note
Behind the word lies a seal being broken: Latin resignāre meant "to unseal, annul, assign," built on signāre, "to seal." Giving something up was, in the word's own image, undoing the seal on it. The construction is resign something to someone. Florio's 1603 translation of Montaigne has Scipio and Lelius resigning "the honour of their Comedies … unto an Affrican servant," with the older unto where we now say to.
4
verbtransitive
To hand something over to someone, placing it into another's care or control.
Trustees resign management of the fund to a new board.
He resigned command of the ship to his first officer.
Similartransfer, entrust, surrender, cede, yield
Oppositeassume
5
Sayree-SYNUS/ɹiˈsaɪn/UK/ɹiːˈsaɪn/
verbnonstandard
Alternative spelling of re-sign. Often criticized as an error, since it is spelled like resign, to quit.
The club moved quickly to resign its captain before the transfer window closed.
Management offered to resign the lease for another three years.
Note
A separate formation, re- plus sign, happens to share its letters with the older verb from Latin, and the two are distant doublets. Writing it without the hyphen is proscribed. "Resigned my GPG key" or "resign its captain" can be read as giving the thing up rather than signing it again. For renewing a signature or a contract, write re-sign.

Practice

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Origins

Meanings 1–4

From Anglo-Norman and Middle French resigner, and ultimately from Latin resignāre ('to unseal, annul, assign, resign'), formed from re- plus signāre ('to seal, stamp'). It is a doublet of re-sign.

Meaning 5

Formed from the prefix re- combined with sign.