resign
verb
Simple meaning
Give up or retire from a position.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
rihzynSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɹɪˈzaɪn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Give up or retire from a position
transitive
To give up; to relinquish ownership of.
Leave (a job, post, or position) voluntarily
transitive
To hand over (something to someone), place into the care or control of another.
transitive
To submit passively; to give up as hopeless or inevitable.
proscribed
To sign again; to provide one's signature again.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Give up or retire from a position
Used this way, resign is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use resign
- “He resigned himself to his fate.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- retireverb
- corruptionnoun
- postnoun
- appointmentnoun
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: give up or retire from a position
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.