ABDICATE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Abdicate

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/ˈæbdəkˌeɪt/ Listen

verb

Abdicate v. t. (past & past part. abdicated; pres. part. abdicating)

To surrender or relinquish, as sovereign power; to withdraw definitely from filling or exercising, as a high office, station, dignity; as, to abdicate the throne, the crown, the papacy. Note: The word abdicate was held to mean, in the case of James II., to abandon without a formal surrender. "The cross-bearers abdicated their service."

To renounce; to relinquish; said of authority, a trust, duty, right, etc. "He abdicates all right to be his own governor." "The understanding abdicates its functions."

To reject; to cast off. (Obs.)

(Civil Law) To disclaim and expel from the family, as a father his child; to disown; to disinherit.

Synonyms: To give up; quit; vacate; relinquish; forsake; abandon; resign; renounce; desert. To Abdicate, Resign. Abdicate commonly expresses the act of a monarch in voluntary and formally yielding up sovereign authority; as, to abdicate the government. Resign is applied to the act of any person, high or low, who gives back an office or trust into the hands of him who conferred it. Thus, a minister resigns, a military officer resigns, a clerk resigns. The expression, "The king resigned his crown," sometimes occurs in our later literature, implying that he held it from his people. There are other senses of resign which are not here brought into view.

Abdicate v. i. To relinquish or renounce a throne, or other high office or dignity. "Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy."

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Etymology of 'Abdicate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Abdicate" Quotes from Famous Books

... exception. He lost his eldest son, the prince of Wales, Charles I. was beheaded, James II. was forced to abdicate, and the two Pretenders consummated the ill ...

— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... France was playing her part in public affairs, all Europe was surprised by another woman, whose actions were without parallel and whose case seems to be the opposite of the one just cited. Marie de' Medici left Italy to become a queen, and now a queen is seen to abdicate that she may go to Rome to live. Christine, Queen of Sweden, a most enlightened woman and the daughter of the great Gustavus Adolphus who had brought about the triumph of the Protestant arms in Germany, relinquished her royal robes in the year 1654, announced her conversion to ...

— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... a sovereign is obliged to abdicate and to fly from his kingdom, that he arranges matters so that he shall not become a pauper when he arrives at the place of refuge. If he is not able to carry away anything more than a valise, he is much more likely to put his royal jewels into it ...

— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton

... 9th December. Do not compel the Emperor to abdicate, but do not delay the departure of the troops; bring back all those who will not remain there. Most of the fleet ...

— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan

... between rival aims in life. There is clearly much less to be said for the recommendation to 'eat and drink for to-morrow we die' if we have reason to believe our souls immortal than if we have not, and some of us do not share Mr. Russell's view that Philosophy is called upon to abdicate what the Greeks thought her sovereign function, the regulation of life. It is true that Kant convinced himself that it is a moral duty to act as if we knew the truth of doctrines for or against which we cannot detect the slightest balance of probability. But the logically sound inference ...

— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

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