rescind

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin rescindō (“to remove by cutting, tear away; to cancel, revoke, annul”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from re- and scindō (“to split, divide, cut”),^[2][3][4] from Proto-Indo-European *skind-, from the root *skei- (“to cut, split”).^[7][3] The revised OED compares Middle French rescinder (“to reduce, cut a sum or charge; to cancel, break a contract”), recorded from 1406,^[2] and Etymonline and Barnhart treat this French verb as a second source;^[7][8] Skeat and Weekley give it as the immediate source.^[9][10] The dictionaries differ on the prefix: Etymonline, Barnhart, Skeat and Chambers read it as "back",^{[7][8][9][11]} and the Oxford Dictionary of English and Collins read it as intensive.^[6][12] Klein connects the Latin verb with shed.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

To revoke, cancel or repeal a law, order or agreement: 1531, in a Scottish record printed in W. Fraser's Memoirs of the Maxwells of Pollock.^[2][4] The OED calls the sense originally Scottish.^[2] Etymonline's date is the 1630s,^[7] and Barnhart's 1637–50.^[8]

Semantic evolution

English took the abstract legal sense first, although the Latin verb had begun with cutting.^[2] The physical senses followed: to take something away, from 1579 to 1812,^[2][14] and to cut through or sever, rare, from 1598 to 1651.^[2][14] The 1718 use for depriving a person of something is a single rare record.^[2] Johnson (1755) still listed both ideas, "to cut off; to abrogate a law", quoting Dryden for the second.^[15] Only the sense of annulling survived,^[2][16] and it now extends beyond statutes to anything granted: Merriam-Webster Unabridged quotes companies rescinding bonuses and a government rescinding an offer.^[4] Contract law adds a narrower use, ending a contract and returning the parties to where they would have been without it.^[17]

Timeline

• 1531 – to revoke, cancel or repeal, originally in Scottish use.^[2][4] Etymonline dates it to the 1630s.^[7]
• 1579 – to take away, remove (obsolete by 1812).^[2][17]
• 1598 – to cut through, sever (rare, obsolete by 1651).^[2][14]
• 1718 – to deprive a person of a thing (rare, obsolete).^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To revoke, cancel or repeal a law, order or agreement: The council rescinded the parking ban.^{[2][6][3][12]}
2. To take back something granted or offered: The university rescinded her scholarship.^[4][17]
3. To abrogate a contract and restore the parties to the positions they would have held without it.^[17][4]
4. To make an act void by action of the authority that passed it or of a higher one.^[17]
5. (obsolete, 1579–1812) To take away, remove.^[2][5][16]
6. (obsolete, 1598–1651) To cut through or cut off.^[2][15]

Word family

• rescindable
• rescinder
• rescindment
• unrescinded

Related words

• rescission
• schism
• shed
• scissile
• abscind

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
14. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
15. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster