resign

Pronunciation

• IPA: /rɪˈzaɪn/, /rəˈzaɪn/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French resigner (“to renounce, relinquish”),^[2][3][4] from Latin resignāre, to unseal, cancel, give up,^[2][3][5] from re-, back, opposite, and signāre, to mark, make an entry (see sign).^[2][3][6] Barnhart and Etymonline explain that resignāre meant making an entry on the credit side of an account, balancing an earlier mark and so cancelling the claim.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To give up, surrender, abandon, submit: about 1370, in Chaucer's A.B.C.;^[2] to relinquish an office or right, about 1380 in the OED.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The common meaning, to give up an office or position, is first recorded before 1387, in Trevisa,^[2][3] and the intransitive use, to leave a job, from the 15th century.^[4] To give up one's life or soul is from 1588,^[7] and to submit oneself to an emotion or situation, to resign oneself to, from 1718.^[3] Resignation is from before 1387.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1370 – to give up, submit.^[2]
• before 1387 – to give up an office; resignation.^[2]
• 15th century – to resign (intransitive).^[4]
• 1718 – to resign oneself.^[3]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To give up a job or office, especially formally.
2. To give up a right or claim; to relinquish.
3. resign oneself to: to accept something as unavoidable.

Word family

• resigner
• resignedly
• resignedness
• resignee
• resignation

Related words

• sign
• signal
• design
• assign

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press