submit
Formssubmits, submitting, submitted
- 1To put something forward formally so that another person can approve, consider, or evaluate it.
She submitted her thesis to the committee for review.
Researchers submit their findings to journals for peer review.
Similarpresent, send, tender, file, lodge
Note
A second construction hides inside this one: submit followed by a that-clause, which puts forward an argument rather than a document. Thomas Macaulay writes in 1843, "We submit that a wooden spoon of our day would not be justified…," offering his claim for the reader to judge. With a noun the pattern is submit something to someone, as in plans for approval or statements to a hiring department.
- 2To yield or give way to the will or authority of another.
The defeated army submitted to the conquering forces.
He would never submit to threats of any kind.
Similaryield, surrender, capitulate, succumb, bow
Oppositeresist, defy, fight, rebel
Note
Where the word's other uses begin: Latin submittere, "to place under, yield," from sub "under" and mittere "to send." To submit in this sense is to put yourself under another's power. It takes to before whatever is yielded to, as in submit to authority or submit to the destruction of their rights. It describes giving in, not handing anything over; that is the transitive "surrender" use.
- 3
- 4To cause a person or thing to undergo a particular process, treatment, or examination.
The researchers submitted the samples to a battery of chemical analyses.
Authorities submit all incoming cargo to thorough screening.
Note
Here the object is not offered up but put through something. Victor Regnault's Elements of Chemistry (1859) says skins "must be submitted to several washings, treadings, and stretchings." The pattern is submit something to a process, and it means much the same as subject to. The difference from the "yield" meaning is who acts: there the subject gives way, and here something is made to undergo.
- 5To defeat an opponent by forcing them to concede, typically through a hold or lock.
The grappler submitted his challenger with a rear naked choke.
Few fighters can submit a wrestler of that caliber.
Note
A combat-sports use, at home in mixed martial arts and professional wrestling. The winner is the subject and the beaten opponent the object, so Ronda Rousey submitted Liz Carmouche. A fighter forced to concede by a joint lock or choke has been submitted, as Goldberg was in 2022. The bout ends there, without a knockout or a judges' decision.
Less common meanings
- 6To let down or lower something from a higher position to a lower one.
Sometimes the hill submits itself a while.
1662, John Dryden, Poem to the Lord Chancellor HydeNote
A literal "send under" that English has since dropped, close to the Latin sense behind the "yield" meaning. John Dryden writes in 1662, "Sometimes the hill submits itself a while," picturing the land letting itself down into a dip. In modern writing this use reads as a mistake, so lower or let down is the safe choice.
- 7To place something under or beneath another object so that it lies below.
They submitted timbers under the sinking foundation to brace it.
The bristled throat / Of the submitted sacrifice with ruthless steel he cut.
1611, George Chapman, Homer's IliadsNote
The most physical of the obsolete uses. George Chapman's Homer's Iliads (1611) speaks of "the submitted sacrifice," the victim laid under the knife. It sits beside the obsolete "lower" sense as a trace of the Latin "place under." A modern reader will hear yielding instead, so place under or put beneath says it without confusion.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English submitten, borrowed from Latin submittere, the infinitive of submittō ("place under, yield"), formed from sub ("under, from below") plus mitto ("to send").