resist

Formsresists, resisting, resisted

Pluralresists

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To make an effort to counter the actions or effects of something.

   Engineers designed the coating to resist corrosion in salt water.

   Community groups organized to resist the proposed development.

   Similaroppose, fight, combat, counter, withstand

   Oppositeaccept, support

   Note

   Behind every sense of the word stands the Latin resistere, built from re- and sistere, "cause to stand": to resist is to stand against. Here the standing is an effort, not a guarantee of success. In Mass Effect (2007), Shepard sets "you could have resisted" against "you surrendered." The verb readily takes an idea as its object, as in resisting the idea that something drastic must happen.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To withstand the actions of something without giving way or being damaged.

   The alloy is engineered to resist extreme pressure deep underwater.

   Ancient fortifications resisted repeated attacks for centuries.

   Similarwithstand, endure, repel, weather, survive

   Oppositesuccumb, yield

   Note

   Here the stress falls on holding out rather than pushing back, and temptation is a classic object: Charles Johnstone's The Reverie (1762) has a woman "not able to resist the temptation." The old negative imperative appears in "Resist not evil," which a speaker in W. B. Maxwell's The Mirror and the Lamp (1918) scorns as preposterous altruism. Unlike the effortful sense, this one implies success: what resists pressure does not give way.

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To put up opposition and refuse to accept or comply.

   Many citizens resisted when the new curfew was announced.

   She felt strong pressure to agree but chose to resist.

   Similarobject, protest, rebel, refuse, balk

   Oppositecomply, submit, yield, acquiesce

   Note

   The intransitive use: no object follows, and the thing opposed is left to context. Citizens simply resisted, or she chose to resist. Elsewhere the verb names what it opposes, but here it describes a stance. When the target needs naming, the sentence shifts to the transitive sense of countering, as in resist the curfew.

4. 4
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A protective coating or covering used to shield a surface from damage.

   Workers brushed resist over the areas they wanted to preserve.

   The pattern emerged once the resist was washed away.

   Similarreserve, mask

   Note

   The verb turned into a noun: a resist is simply something that resists, a layer that withstands whatever is applied to the surface, much as the "withstand" meaning describes. It works as a mass noun (workers brushed resist over an area) and also as a countable one with the plural resists, for different coatings of the kind.

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