Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Abdicate   /ˈæbdəkˌeɪt/   Listen
Abdicate

verb
(past & past part. abdicated; pres. part. abdicating)
1.
Give up, such as power, as of monarchs and emperors, or duties and obligations.  Synonym: renounce.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"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

... the only way. Put the evidence before the people, and they'll see what they're up against. I personally don't care whether we have an Emperor or not, but at least we can force Hannikar IV to abdicate in ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett

... arbitrary manner. On that occasion Khudadad, the late ruling khan, murdered his prime minister in a fit of passion, and upon investigation it was found that he had put to death also without trial a number of innocent subjects. The Viceroy of India permitted him to abdicate and gave him a generous allowance, which was much better treatment than the villain was entitled to. His son, Mir Mahmud, who succeeded him, turns out to be an excellent ruler. He is intelligent, conscientious, and has the welfare of ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... do nothing for pity—nothing for love? Will ye leave a foreign Parliament to mitigate—will ye leave a native Parliament, gained in your despite, to redress these miseries—will ye for ever abdicate the duty and the joy of making the poor comfortable, and the peasant attached and happy? Do—if so you prefer; but know that if you do, you are a doomed race. Once more, Aristocracy of Ireland, we warn and entreat you to consider ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... facts. The cases in which conscientious Christians found themselves, by no fault of their own, invested by inhuman laws with an absolute authority over helpless fellow-men, which it would not be right for them suddenly to abdicate, were not few nor unimportant.[275:3] In dealing with such cases several different courses were open to the church: (1) To execute discipline rigorously according to the formula, on the principle, Be rid of the tares ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... the notorious case of Mr. KING who, on being offered a peerage if he would desist from his criticisms of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE and his Ministry, pointed out that other monarchs might abdicate, but that those who thought he would do ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various

... must have known that the Kaiser would not object to his massacres of the Armenians and the strengthening of Turkish rule, for these only aided the purposes of Germany. But Abdul Hamid was forced to abdicate by a revolution of his own people before the Armenians were exterminated and before the Kaiser's dream was realized. By 1915, however, the "Great Assassin's" power was in the hands of Turks who held the same beliefs and sought to carry out the same plans as he had ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... colour changed, he turned pale, and fainted away. When he was recovered, he remained some time in deep contemplation, after which he exclaimed, "By him who constituted me the guardian of his people, I swear that if thy assertion be found true I will abdicate my kingdom, and resign it to thee, for royalty cannot longer become me; but should thy words prove void of foundation, I will put thee to instant death." "To hear is to assent," ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... lost patience at last, and angrily and half seriously gives permission to them to take the law into their own hands. He really means, 'I will not be your tool, and if my conviction of "the Man's" innocence is to be of no account, you must punish Him; for I will not.' How far he meant to abdicate authority, and how far he was launching sarcasms, it is difficult to say. Throughout he is sarcastic, and thereby indicates his weakness, indemnifying himself for being thwarted by sneers which sit so ill ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... the questions I have discussed there is another class of questions connected with war which present great difficulty. It is the right of men to abdicate their private judgment by entering into the military profession. In small nations this question is not of much importance, for in them wars are of very rare occurrence and are usually for self-defence. In ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... that defect would have been cured by an amendment in Committee; and, even if there had not been any such clause in the Bill, it is clear, from what has been said above, that the Imperial Legislature could not, if it would, renounce its supremacy or abdicate its sovereign powers. The executive government in Ireland was continued in the Queen, to be carried on by the Lord Lieutenant on behalf of her Majesty, with the aid of such officers and Council as to her Majesty might from time to time seem ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... quite insupportable to him; so much so, that it is believed that had the ill-fated English expedition to Walcheren in 1809 succeeded, and the army advanced into the country, he would have declared war against France. After an ineffectual struggle of more than three years, he chose rather to abdicate his throne than retain it under the degrading conditions of proconsulate subserviency. This measure excited considerable regret, and much esteem for the man who preferred the retirement of private life to the meanness of regal slavery. But Louis left a galling memento of misplaced ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... to fear the ban of excommunication which lay upon him. This weakness alarmed the suspicions of his sons, terrible and wolf-like men, whom Matteo had hitherto controlled with bit and bridle. They therefore induced him to abdicate in 1322, and when in the same year he died, they buried his body in a secret place, lest it should be exhumed, and scattered to the winds in accordance with the Papal edict against him.[1] Galeazzo, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... every mouth—"humanity." The very songs of previous stages, the "Ca ira" and the "Carmagnole," were displaced by new and milder ones. With Paris in this mood, it was clear that the proscribed might return, and the Convention, for its intemperate severity, must abdicate. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... a contingency arises, it is for a moment difficult to get rid of our habitual associations, and to feel that we are not a mere partnership, dissolvable whether by mutual consent or on the demand of one or more of its members, but a nation, which can never abdicate its right, and can never surrender it while virtue enough is left in the people to make it worth retaining. It would seem to be the will of God that from time to time the manhood of nations, like that of individuals, ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... now such a sorrowful penitent for being guilty of (God forbid any should make so vile a use of so good a design), but to draw the just picture of a man enslaved to the rage of his vicious appetite; how he defaces the image of God in his soul, dethrones his reason, causes conscience to abdicate the possession, and exalts sense into the vacant throne; how he deposes the ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe

... Cleanthes, reasoning having taken you as far as you want to go, you decline to advance any further; even though you fully admit that the very same reasoning forbids you to stop where you are pleased to cry halt! But this is simply forcing your reason to abdicate in favour of your caprice. It is impossible to imagine that Hume, of all men in the world, could have rested satisfied with such an act of high-treason against the sovereignty of philosophy. We may rather conclude that ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... in which he told them that he, convinced that he could do nothing more to promote their welfare, and, on the contrary, believing that he was an obstacle in the way of the restoration of friendly relations between his brother and Holland, had determined to abdicate in favor of his two sons, Napoleon Louis and Charles Louis Napoleon. Until they should attain their majority the queen, in conformity with the constitution, was to be regent. He then took leave of his subjects, in a short and touching address. ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach

... Leicester party complained that the principal use to which this newly discovered "people" had been applied, was to confer its absolute sovereignty unconditionally upon one man. The people was to be sovereign in order that it might immediately abdicate in favour of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... made, Ernst and several servants set off in attendance on Master Gresham for the capital city of the Netherlands. It had been for some time known that the Emperor—Charles the Fifth— purposed to abdicate the throne in favour of his son Philip the Second, now titular King of England, as well as of several small kingdoms and provinces. The day fixed was the 25th of October of the year 1555. In the magnificent hall of the residence of the Dukes of Brabant, the great ceremony was to take place. At ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... broke his solemn promise, set up the standard of revolt, and was joined by nobles, ecclesiastical as well as lay, and by the restless Saxon rebels. By a trick he got his father into his power and forced him formally to abdicate, while he himself was crowned King by the papal legate. But the Emperor escaped, and with marvellous energy gathered adherents; but a renewal of the struggle was staved off by his own death after a few days' ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... spirits? Think of me over the Cyprus, between the cup and the lip, though bad things are said to fall out so. We have, instead of Cyprus, Montepulciano, the famous 'King of Wine,' crowned king, you remember, by the grace of a poet! Your Cyprus, however, keeps supremacy over me, and will not abdicate the divine right of being associated with you. I speak of wine, but we live here the most secluded, quiet life possible—reading and writing, and talking of all things in heaven and earth, and a ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... to question Eliza's prior claim to Simon. She always sat beside him on the original settle against the lean-to. She would not abdicate the seat even when the ground grew hot and pleasant and she saw half her mates lying on the short sparse grass with their heels in the air, conning their books, or falling asleep over them, as the case might be. She felt it her prerogative to sit right there, with her chubby legs sticking ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... of these efforts to suppress throughout Germany all agitating political ideas and movements, the news arrived of the revolution in Naples, July, 1820, effected by the Carbonari, by which the king was compelled to restore the constitution of 1813, or abdicate. Metternich lost no time in assembling the monarchs of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, with their principal ministers, to a conference or congress at Troppau, with a view of putting down the insurrection ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... long, For a superber race, they too to grandly fill their time, For them we abdicate, in them ourselves ye forest kings.' In them these skies and airs, these mountain peaks, Shasta, Nevadas, These huge precipitous cliffs, this amplitude, these valleys, far Yosemite, To ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... to settle down would be impossible now. The intellect, the judgment are in abeyance. Life is running turbid and full; and it is no marvel that reason, after vainly supposing that it ruled the world, should abdicate as gracefully as possible, when the world is so obviously the sport of cruder powers—vested interests, tribal passions, stock sentiments, and chance majorities. Having no responsibility laid upon it, reason has become irresponsible. Many critics ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... Schwab $1,300,000. And Carnegie's little group could see no limit to the growth of their business and the expansion of their personal fortunes. Yet at that very moment Carnegie was planning to play the part of a Charles V with the large empire which he had pieced together—to abdicate his throne, retire from business life, and spend his remaining days ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick

... delusive; it does not ask the individual who has rejected god, the universal tyrant, god the king, and god the parliament, to give unto himself a god more terrible than any of the preceding—god the Community, or to abdicate upon its altar his independence, his will, his tastes, and to renew the vow of asceticism which he formerly made before the crucified god. It says to him, on the contrary, "No society is free so long as the individual is not so! Do not seek to ...
— The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution - An Address Delivered in Paris • Pierre Kropotkin

... turned pale. He must "lick" Abner Briggs, Junior, or abdicate. So he determined to lick ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... drop or, as you say in England, knock up calling me 'sir.' I am no longer a king. I resign. I abdicate. I chuck up the sponge of royalty. What the hell, my dear Gorman, is the good of being a king when there are ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham

... he arose, he observed from his window that the greater part had disappeared. A council was immediately summoned, and a proposal made that the King should flee by sea to Bordeaux; but the Duke of Exeter objected that to quit the kingdom in such circumstances was to abdicate the throne. Let them proceed to the army at Conway. There they might bid defiance to the enemy; or at all events, as the sea would still be open, might thence set sail to Guienne. His opinion prevailed; and at nightfall the King, in the disguise of a Franciscan friar, his two brothers of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... Strictly, upon the first of these occasions the sovereign, Edward II., was driven by threat of deposition to abdicate.] ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... as Jalapilla, situated about a couple of miles south of the city, is the spot where Maximilian resided for a brief period after the French army had deserted him. Here he held the famous council as to whether he should abdicate the Mexican throne or not. He was more than half inclined to do it. It was really the only common-sense course which was left open to him. Had he done so, he might have been living to-day. Vera Cruz was close at hand and easily ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... "are too deeply grounded to abdicate their place among our ideals until better substitutes are offered ... such a conscription, with the state of public opinion that would have required it, and the many moral fruits it would bear, would preserve in the midst of a pacific civilization the manly virtues ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... actually occurring. The late king dying without issue, his adopted son, the present king, ascended the throne. During his minority his father acted as regent—a position the latter found to suit him so well that, by-and-by, when his son became of age he refused to abdicate the throne in favor of its lawful occupant, threw off all semblance of allegiance, and assumed a high-handed and arrogant bearing, especially exhibited towards the queen and her family, with whom the regent was at bitter feud. To compass their ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... turn from braggart pride Our race to cheapen and defame? Before the world to wail, to chide, And weakness as with vaunting claim? Ere the hour strikes, to abdicate The steadfast spirit that made us great, And rail with scolding ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various

... Mortimer shrunk from the odium of decreeing Edward's deposition, and the more prudent course was preferred of inducing the king to resign his power into his son's hands. An effort to persuade the captive monarch to abdicate before his estates, was defeated by his resolute refusal. Thereupon a committee of bishops, barons, and judges was sent to Kenilworth to receive his renunciation in the name of parliament. On January ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... acceptation the SOVEREIGNTY, THE STATE ITSELF—it could not be produced by a less or inferior authority, much less by the will or the act of one who, with reference to civil and political rights, was himself a slave. The master might abdicate or abandon his interest or ownership in his property, but his act would be a mere abandonment. It seems to involve an absurdity to impute to it the investiture of rights which the sovereignty alone ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard

... our Ancestors exerted in the Case of Chilperick their 18th King, whom they forced to abdicate the Kingdom, [Footnote: Regno se abdicare coegerunt.] and made him a Monk, judging him unworthy to sit at the Helm of so great an Empire, [Footnote: Propter inertiam.] by reason of his Sloth. Whereof Aimoinus, lib. ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman

... stormed as he had not stormed since the spring of 1778, when he had been asked to entrust the government to Lord Chatham. Like the child who refuses to play when he sees the game going against him, George threatened to abdicate the throne and go over to Hanover, leaving his son to get along with the Whig statesmen. But presently he took heart again, and began to resort to the same kind of political management which had served him so well ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... realm and its people should be settled in parliaments in which the commons should be included. Thereafter no statute could be legally passed without their consent. In 1327 Parliament showed its power by forcing Edward II to abdicate in favor of his son, and thereby established the principle that the representatives of the nation might even go so far as to depose their ruler, should he show himself clearly unfit for his high duties. About this time Parliament began to meet in two distinct divisions, which ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... usurper, careless of the remonstrances of his friends, gave orders that Philip should be detained as a captive, or, at least, as a hostage; while he despatched an officer to reproach Constantius with the weakness of his reign, and to insult him by the promise of a pardon if he would instantly abdicate the purple. "That he should confide in the justice of his cause, and the protection of an avenging Deity," was the only answer which honor permitted the emperor to return. But he was so sensible of the difficulties of his situation, that he no longer ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... Rudolph showing that the double infirmity inherent in the paternal lineage of Charles the Rash and in the maternal line of Joanna the Mad continues in the Austrians; a recent king of Prussia itself shutting himself up in his room as in a gaol, and obliged by fatality to abdicate the throne of his forefathers during his lifetime in favor of the next heir, must prove, as they have done, what is the result of braving the maledictions of the oracle of Delphi, and the catastrophes of the twins of OEdipus with such persistency, in this age, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... (of human rights). Men who cannot find time once in three months to drop a ballot in the box, will not come three times a week to attend the meetings of a club. Far from meddling with the government, they abdicate, and as they refuse to elect it, they cannot undertake to ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... discredited, so was the bitterness of deposition, the mournful fiction of being passed by and relegated to the second place. Her place was her own. Her standing ground in the universal order, a freehold, absolute and inalienable. She could not abdicate her throne, neither could any wrest it away from her. She perceived that not self-effacement, but self-development, not dissolution, but evolution, was the service required of her. And, as divinely designed contribution ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... who lays aside a task, where one has ruled alone, I lay aside the crown of hell, and give to you my throne; As one who feels his race is run, whose day is of the past, I recognize your genius, and abdicate at last. I go and leave you master, and I feel it's just as well, For Hades lacks its master, until you rule in hell. The world wags on and changes, old methods now seem weak, And the changes of a thousand years, of these ...
— Rhymes of a Roughneck • Pat O'Cotter

... the monarchs of this dynasty [Page 125] calls for notice. The last emperor was compelled to abdicate; and thus, after a career of nearly three centuries bright with the light of genius and prolific of usages good and bad that set the fashion for after ages, ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... everything. The Assemblies at the Luxembourg—I mean the Palace of the Bourbons—fatigue me. In short, whatever regret I may feel at parting from my honorable colleagues, and from my faithful constituents, I shall abdicate my functions whenever you are ready and willing to accept them. Have you not some property ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... the allegiance of a still patient and passive German people: just as Napoleonic militarism was not crushed at Waterloo and revived in 1849, because Napoleon still retained the allegiance of the French people. It is inconceivable that the German reactionaries will abdicate of their own free will. It is equally inconceivable that the reaction will develop slowly and gradually into a free democratic government, as von Bethmann-Hollweg would make us believe in the historic speech of February 27. No doubt this war has ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... unmade at the will of these men behind the scenes, most of whom are quite unknown to fame. The creation of infant Emperors, allowed to bear the Imperial name in their infancy and youth, but compelled to abdicate on reaching manhood, was a common device for maintaining nominal Imperialism ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... the supernatural has had its day. The church must either change or abdicate. That is to say, it must keep step with the progress of the world or be trampled under foot. The church as a power has ceased to exist. To-day it is a matter of infinite indifference what the pulpit thinks unless there comes the voice of heresy from the sacred place. ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... in the Royal Chapel at Stirling Castle in 1566, and in 1567, when he was only about thirteen months old, was crowned in the parish church at Stirling, his mother Queen Mary having been forced to abdicate in favour of her son. The great Puritan divine John Knox preached the Coronation sermon on that occasion, and the young king was educated until he was thirteen years of age by George Buchanan, the celebrated ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... of your self-distrust! You—reign? Come, come! You would be pale and wan; One of those timid, introspective kings Who are imprisoned lest they abdicate. ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand

... miss, dressed in a new gown for a dancing-school ball, receives as complete enjoyment as the greatest orator who triumphs in the splendor of his eloquence, while he governs the passions and resolutions of a numerous assembly." You ask them to give up these pleasures and these triumphs, and to abdicate their thrones,—to become implements instead of ornaments, and to help to bring down the high price of labor in the present scarcity of laborers; and you offer them in exchange the right to wear trousers, to drive an omnibus, or to wear a policeman's uniform! Do you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... primogeniture deserved to be considered, and selected as his successor, Phraa-tes, the eldest of the thirty. Not content with nominating him, or perhaps doubtful whether the nomination would be accepted by the Megistanes, he proceeded further to abdicate in his favor, whereupon Phraates became king. The transaction proved a most unhappy one. Phraates, jealous of some of his brothers, who were the sons of a princess married to Orodes, whereas his own mother was only a concubine, removed them by assassination, and when the ex-monarch ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... is one of our most precious possessions. It is the greatest contributing factor to the stability strength liberty, and progress of the Nation. It ought not to be in ringed by assault or undermined by purchase. It ought not to abdicate its power through weakness or resign its authority through favor. It does not at all follow that because abuses exist it is the concern of the Federal Government to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... scaffold. There is but one route by which to flee a throne and not to die—abdication. On his return from Varennes, the king should have abdicated. The Revolution would have adopted his son, and have educated it in its own image. He did not abdicate—he consented to accept the pardon of his people; he swore to execute a constitution from which he had fled. He was a king in a state of amnesty. Europe beheld in him but a fugitive from his throne led back to his punishment, the nation but a traitor, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... square-rigged ship, intricate, capricious, and feminine in her beauty, with forty nimble seamen in the forecastle, not that of the metal trough with an engine in the middle and mechanics sweating in her depths. When the Atlantic packet was compelled to abdicate, it was the beginning of the end. After all, her master was the fickle wind, for a slashing outward passage might be followed by weeks of beating home to the westward. Steadily forging ahead to the ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... I delight in my sin. For once I am a power; I speak from the throne. You will not have me abdicate in the zenith of my glory? Be kind, most gracious one. Besides, did you not once cry because your uncle refused to sit with you? Had he been the possessor of a dangerous wound, as I am, and had he found himself so ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... struggle to Polly to abdicate her royal position, it was harder to do it with befitting dignity. To evade the direct question she was obliged to abandon her defiant attitude. "If you please, Sir," she said, hurriedly, with an increasing colour ...
— The Queen of the Pirate Isle • Bret Harte

... post,' the Prince asked; 'if my friends admit it, if my subjects clamour for my downfall, if revolution is preparing at this hour, must I not go forth to meet the inevitable? should I not save these horrors and be done with these absurdities? in a word, should I not abdicate? O, believe me, I feel the ridicule, the vast abuse of language,' he added, wincing, 'but even a principulus like me cannot resign; he must make a great gesture, and come buskined ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... temper was threatening, and he was rapidly losing control. By delay and postponement he gained something. Instead of arriving as an assailant, he came as a deliverer. When he remonstrated, his soldiers said that they meant no injury to the king, but that he must obey or abdicate. They would make their general Regent; but if he refused to put himself at their head, they would take his life. They told him that he had commanded long enough, and now he must follow. He did not yield until ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... assembly, he fell immediately he incurred the resentment of Count Ricimer, one of the chief commanders of the barbarian troops who formed the military defence of Italy. At a distance from his Gothic allies, he was compelled to abdicate (October 16, 456), and Majorian was raised to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... spoke in a tongue not understood by the people. The masses were not even alarmed by the warnings of veteran statesmen, consummate financiers, and doctrinaires of every school. Only in those great crises when all that is left to wisdom is a choice of calamities, as in 1848 and 1871, does Demos abdicate; recognize for a moment that all men are not born, much less trained to remain, free and equal, and entreat the pilots by hereditary profession to see the ship of State ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... the year of the Peace of Augsburg, [25] Charles V determined to abdicate his many crowns and seek the repose of a monastery. The plan was duly carried into effect. His brother Ferdinand I succeeded to the title of Holy Roman Emperor and the Austrian territories, while his son, Philip II, [26] received the Spanish ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... ordained." Is not this notion of the judgment being delegated to Jesus plainly adopted from the political image of a deputy? The king himself rarely sits on a judicial tribunal: he is generally represented there by an inferior officer. But this arrangement is totally inapplicable to God, who can never abdicate his prerogatives, since they are not legal, but dynamic. The essential nature of God is infinity. Certainly, there can be no substitution of this. It cannot be put off, nor put on, nor multiplied. There ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... Mexican general, emancipated Mexico from the yoke of Spain; seized the crown and was proclaimed emperor in 1822, was obliged to abdicate next year and leave the country, but returning, was ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... kept a house as long as they had a house needing to be kept—are deserted by the sole occupation for which they have fitted themselves; and remain with undiminished activity but with no employment for it, unless perhaps a daughter or daughter-in-law is willing to abdicate in their favour the discharge of the same functions in her younger household. Surely a hard lot for the old age of those who have worthily discharged, as long as it was given to them to discharge, what ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... her in December, 1847, her age being fifty-six. Had this amiable adulteress, who wished success to the allied armies against her husband, lived a little longer, she would have witnessed the humiliating spectacle of her father's successor being forced to abdicate his throne in favour of the nephew of her Imperial husband, whose memory all noble hearts revere, and whose sufferings, domestic and public, will ever lie at the door of this woman who allowed herself to ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... I admit is mine; but not for the loss I sustain. In the presence of the master I am content to stand humbly to one side, as befits one of my lowly state in—in the ranks of our profession. I resign, I abdicate in your favor; claiming ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... moody, contemplative, and desirous of solitude. Nothing that the Duke had said had shaken him. He was still sure of his pearl, and quite determined that he would wear it. Various thoughts were running through his brain. What if he were to abdicate the title and become a republican? He was inclined to think that he could not abdicate, but he was quite sure that no one could prevent him from going to America and calling himself Mr. Palliser. That his father would forgive him and accept the daughter-in-law brought to ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... since Parnassus have forsaken, And say the ancient bards were all mistaken. Apollo's lately abdicate and fled, And good king Bacchus reigneth in his stead: He does the chaos of the head refine, And atom thoughts jump into words by wine: The inspiration's of a finer nature, As wine must needs excel ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe

... readiness to obey it, by summoning the people according to command, and requiring names whereby to draw forth an army for diversion, but no man would answer. Report hereof being made to the Senate, the younger sort of the fathers grew so hot with the Consuls that they desired them to abdicate the magistracy, which they had not the ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... to drink and degradation, he had been the butt-end of riot and revolt at the Foundry. He had had his own way with Whiffler. He did not like to abdicate and give in to this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... that the promoters of "national schools" are drifting from the very basic principle of our educational system, from the law and spirit of our Constitution. Our form of Government, as we all know, is dual. Matters of education are relevant to the Province. The more the Province will abdicate its claims, and submit to the growing influence of the Federal powers, the greater will be the danger of losing the political equilibrium of Confederation. Unstable equilibrium, once disturbed, is hardly ever re-established. The centrifugal forces of the Province protect our liberties against ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... outright, a pleasant sound, not guiltless of a suggestion of sleep, a laugh of good nature that refuses to abdicate. It brushed her back into herself as if he had taken her by the shoulders, pushed her into her prison, and ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... for feare of lesynge them selfe forsoke the shyp & gate them into the bote: he onely abode / and by chaunce was safe brought into the hauen / wherupon he chalengeth the vessell for his / where as the party defendant wyll lay against hym that he is abdicate or for- saken of his father / and so can nat by the law haue any ...
— The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke • Leonard Cox

... them to great weight, and who were personally affected in the security of their lives and property and in the interests of their life-work by the policy adopted by their respective Governments. All were citizens who did not abdicate their citizenship by becoming missionaries, and whose status and rights in China, as such, have been specifically recognized by treaty. All, moreover, expressed their views with clearness, dignity and force. From the viewpoint ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... people roared with joy to see as he rode through the streets. When he returned from his journeyings and found him a splendid youth, he detested him. When the people began to clamor and demand that he himself should abdicate, he became insane with rage, and committed such cruelties that the people ran mad themselves. One day they stormed the palace, killed and overpowered the guards, and, rushing into the royal apartments, burst in upon the king as he shuddered ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Mary's hated religion to alienate entirely the love of her people. Her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was murdered. The queen was suspected of having some guilty knowledge of the affair. She was imprisoned and forced to abdicate in favor of ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... any alliance with Russia and Denmark, and stubbornly resisted the friendship France wished to bestow. By his imbecility he lost Finland to the kingdom, and was compelled to abdicate in 1808. This "lunatic monarch," as he was called, was escorted out of the country with his family, never to return, and died in St. Gallin, ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... established Universe had fitted all the known facts—and then new facts had been learned that wouldn't fit it. The third planet of the Sol system had once been the center of the Universe, and then Terra, and Sol, and even the galaxy, had been forced to abdicate centricity. The atom had been indivisible—until somebody divided it. There had been intangible substance that had permeated the Universe, because it had been necessary for the transmission of light—until it was demonstrated to ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper

... justice. My plain duty was to win for your child that succession belonging to him by all moral right. When Philip d'Avranche was killed, I set to work to do for your child what had been done by another for Philip d'Avranche. I have made him my heir. When he is of age I shall abdicate from the duchy in his favour. This deed, countersigned by the Powers that dispossessed his father, secures to him the duchy when he is old ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... means this odd digression? May be that I by heaven's decrees Shall abdicate the bard's profession, And shall adopt some new caprice. Thus having braved Apollo's rage With humble prose I'll fill my page And a romance in ancient style Shall my declining years beguile; Nor shall my ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... was to be made dependent on human speculation—a most dangerous error, since it reintroduced the very wisdom which knew not God, and which the Apostles ignored. It ushered in the reign of rationalism, which still refuses to abdicate her throne, and which is absolutely rampant and exulting in the great universities of the most learned ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... settled to her satisfaction. It rested (exactly as Miss Minerva had anticipated) with Mr. Gallilee. In the house, he might abdicate his authority to his heart's content. Out of the house, in matters of business, he was master still. His "investments" represented excellent "security;" he had only to say how much he wanted to borrow, and to sign certain ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... in Esperanto. Aback, to take surprizi. Abaft posta parto. Abandon forlasi. Abase humiligi. [Error in book: humilgi] Abash hontigi. Abate (lower) mallevi. Abate (speed) malakceli. Abbey abatejo. Abbot abato. Abbreviate mallongigi. Abdicate demeti la regxecon. Abdomen ventro. Abduct forrabi. Abduction forrabo. Abed lite. Aberration spiritvagado. Abet kunhelpi. Abhor malamegi. Abhorrence malamego. Abide logxi (resti). Ability lerteco. Ability talento. Abject humilega. Abjure malkonfesi, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... times before. I thought some o' goin' to war with the wild niggers in the hills, an' avengin' my father-in-law's death, but I couldn't get my army more than three miles inland, so I had to give that up. Before three months had passed I wanted to abdicate the worst way. I wanted to tread a deck again, an' rove around with Bull McGinty. I wanted th' smell o' the open sea an' th' heave o' th' Dashin' Wave underfoot. I was tired o' breadfruit an' guavas an' cocoanuts an' all ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... it seemed to produce no emotion, one way or the other. But if the marshals and grandees, who have hold of the wires of administration at the point where they are centralized, chose to make Napoleon III abdicate, (as they made Napoleon I. abdicate at Fontainebleau,) and to set up a king of the House of Orleans in his place, they could probably do it; and they might choose to do it, if, by such blunders ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... father, win a throne by all means: you will fill it. If your son be another extraordinary man, he will fill it when his turn comes. But if that son be, as, alas, he most probably will be, like Umberto, quite ordinary, then let parental love triumph over pride of dynasty: advise your boy to abdicate at the earliest possible moment. A great king—what better? But it is ill that a throne be sat on by one whose legs dangle uncertainly towards the dais, and ill that a crown settle down over the tip of the nose. And the very fact that for quite inadequate kings men's hands do leap to the salute, ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... the Spanish Jews arrived. For the unbroken peace they had enjoyed, they had to atone by centuries of unexampled suffering. By degrees, the Arabs were forced out of the Pyrenean Peninsula, and the power they had to abdicate was assumed by the Catholic kings of Castile and Aragon. In 1236 occurred the fall of Cordova, the most important centre of Arabic Jewish culture. Thereafter Arab power held sway only in the province of Granada. The fortunes of the Spanish Jews underwent a calamitous ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow

... had made every effort and sacrifice to put an end to that painful state of things, and that, finally, he regarded himself as the cause of the continual misunderstanding between the French Empire and Holland. It is curious that Louis thought he could abdicate the crown of Holland in favour of his son, as Napoleon only four years after wished to abdicate his crown in favour of the King ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... in her presence, dragged him into an antechamber, and there stabbed him. The next year Darnley was murdered. It was believed that Mary and the Earl of Bothwell, whom she soon married, were guilty of the crime. The people rose and cast her into prison, and forced her to abdicate in favor of her infant son, James VI, who eventually became King of England and ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... and Sally was dispensing the tea at the head of the table, Mrs. Kittridge having been prevailed on to abdicate in her favor. ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the statesman Stambulov, was immediately initiated, and on September 3 Prince Alexander reappeared in Sofia amidst tumultuous applause. Nevertheless his position was hopeless; the Emperor Alexander III forced him to abdicate, and on September 7, 1886, he left Bulgaria for good, to the regret of the majority of the people. He died in Austria, in 1893, in his thirty-seventh year. At his departure a regency was constituted, at the head of ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... do not scold," and gracefully taking the crown from her own fair curls, she placed it on the silvery locks of her mother; "I abdicate in your favor, and, sweetheart, I thank you for placing our dynasty on the throne. Mary, you are ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... ladyship was audible outside long enough for Mrs. Bailey to abdicate before she entered the room. They met on the stairs and spoke. Was that Mr. Torrens at the piano?—asked Gwen. Because if it was she mustn't stop him. She would cry off and try her ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... intimation that they must not presume to alter laws relating to money. A strong party among the Lords was obstinate. Mulgrave spoke at great length against the pretensions of the plebeians. He told his brethren that, if they gave way, they would abdicate that authority which had belonged to the baronage of England ever since the foundation of the monarchy, and that they would have nothing left of their old greatness except their coronets and ermines. Burnet says that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... is quite correct, Mr. Senator. I, too, like yourself, was once a good party man: my party was that of the Church; I was ultramontane. Your party system is one of your thefts from our Church; your National Convention is our OEcumenic Council; you abdicate reason, as we do, before its decisions; and you yourself, Mr. Ratcliffe, you are a Cardinal. They are able men, those cardinals; I have known many; they were our best friends, but they were not reformers. Are ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... their Bessie Carmichaels, their Oliphants, their Sandilands, and their Weirs, and shall it be denied to us even to name a maiden whom we delight to honour? Nay, then, sink state and perish sovereignty! for, like a second Charles V, we will abdicate, and seek in the private shades of life those pleasures which are ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... remember. What I can recollect amounts to this, that the Emperor of Austria was the first person who informed the King of the Queen's conduct in Italy, that after the enquiry was set on foot a negotiation was entered into with the Queen, the basis of which was that she should abdicate the title of Queen, and that to this she had consented. He said that Brougham had acted a double part, for that he had acquiesced in the propriety of her acceding to those terms, and had promised that he would go over to her and confirm her in her resolution ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... succour," he said, "comes to us, we will extend our hands to it; but if it marches under the Orleans banner, the Government will not recognise that banner. As a man, I deplore the law which proscribes this family; as a citizen and a politician, I maintain it. Even if these Princes were to abdicate their dynastic pretensions, the Government will remember Bonaparte, and how he destroyed the Republic in 1851, and energetically protest against their return." This reply when reported to the Club was greatly applauded. Probably none of its members had ever heard ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... the "array of subjects" taught in a present-day school. School-teachers in America prepare themselves so carefully for their duties, train themselves to such a high order of skill in their performance, it is but just that those of us who are not teachers should abdicate in ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken

... would not dare be cruel. Hannibal is forced to be absent; and his authority goes away with his horse. On this turf lies defaced the semblance of a general; but Marcellus is yet the regulator of his army. Dost thou abdicate a power conferred on thee by thy nation? Or wouldst thou acknowledge it to have become, by thy own sole fault, less plenary ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... which the ambition of Napoleon Bonaparte produced without intention on his part, was the uprising against Spanish oppression in South America. When Napoleon compelled Ferdinand to abdicate the crown of Spain in favor of Joseph Bonaparte, the loyalty and spirit of the Spaniards were aroused, and the people refused to submit to a monarch imposed on them by treachery and supported by foreign bayonets. In the provinces not occupied by the French, juntas were established which assumed ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... proceedings with deepest interest and concern and not a little admiration. But not only did Swallow refuse to abdicate but he seemed to take decided exceptions to the feminine method of appeal. He evidently did not like to be called "doggie," ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon

... straining every nerve to procure my downfall; but you shall learn how a man who despises the pinchbeck honors of a throne can defeat your petty malice and miserable scheming. Monsieur Nesimir, I proclaim Kosnovia a Republic from this hour! Here and now I abdicate! Summon a meeting of the Assembly to-morrow, and I shall give its members the best of reasons why the State will prosper more under the people's rule than under that of either of the men who are ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... Prussia—entered France at once; and though Napoleon resisted, stood bravely and skilfully, and gained single battles against Austria and Prussia, he could not stand against all Europe. In April the Allies entered Paris, and he was forced to abdicate, being sent under a strong guard to the little Mediterranean isle of Elba. He had drained France of men by his constant call for soldiers, who were drawn by conscription from the whole country, till there were not enough to do the work in ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge

... silly," he begged. "I dare anything in these circumstances, the greater outrage includes the less. If I abdicate you I feel myself entitled to tease you. No, I think you had better not place too much faith in Mr. Beale, who doesn't seem to be a member of the regular police force, and is, I presume, one of those amateur gentlemen who figure in ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... with Charmian's face had suddenly made something within her weep over the child, take herself to task. There was still much impulse in Mrs. Mansfield. To-night a subtlety in Charmian, which no man could have detected, set that impulse in a generous and warm blaze; filled her with a wish to abdicate in the child's favor, to make her the center of the evening's attention, the source of the evening's conversation; to show Heath that Charmian could be as interesting as herself and more ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... though the successor be found and consents to make an attempt, the old unfortunate cannot be allowed to go free when that attempt is shown to be a failure. He has not absolutely given up the keys of his boxes, and no one will take them from him. Even a sovereign can abdicate; but the Prime Minister of a constitutional government is in bonds. The reader may therefore understand that the Duchess was asking her husband what place among the political rulers of the country had been offered to him by the last aspirant to the ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... other hand the home need not abdicate all of its old-time functions as a social center. A few years ago in attending a rural community conference at the University of Illinois I was interested to hear a farm woman, a graduate of that university, tell how she and her neighbors had held amateur dramatic entertainments ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson

... sensitive women, take hints and resent rebuffs, and so exile themselves from the world prematurely and haughtily. They abdicate the moment they see that any desire their discrowning. Abdication is grand, no doubt. But possession is more profitable. "A well-bred dog does not wait to be kicked out," says the old see-saw. But the well-bred ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... on a foreign queen, and in virtue of which, if she transgressed them, she could be punished with death? In fact these doubts were raised at the time.[259] Against them it was alleged that Mary, who had been forced to abdicate by her subjects and deprived of her dignity, could not be regarded any longer as a queen: while a deposed sovereign is bound by the laws of the land in which he resides. If she was still a queen, yet she was subject to the feudal supremacy of England, and ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... Providence to terminate a tyranny unexampled in the history of the world. It is worthy of remark, that in this very castle, in which the venerable Head of the Romish Church was so long and so unjustly detained a captive, his once formidable oppressor was obliged to abdicate that authority which he had so long usurped and abused; and the 11th of April 1814, will be long hailed over Europe as the epoch when liberty, peace and good order were restored to its inhabitants, ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard

... again and made a start, it's easy enough to manage your affairs—in as far as they need any management of mine—from a distance. This beginning again is triumphant. I congratulate you! You're your own best physician. You know how to treat your case to a marvel. So I abdicate." ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... brought the astounding news to the store that evening. Chester was Jethro's own candidate for senior Selectman! Jethro himself had said so, that he would be happy to abdicate in Chester's favor, and make it unanimous—Chester having been a candidate so many times, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... could scarcely bring himself to believe that the words which he had heard had proceeded from the pulpit of Barchester cathedral. Was he again to be disturbed? Was his whole life to be shown up as a useless sham a second time? Would he have to abdicate his precentorship, as he had his wardenship, and to give up chanting, as he had given up his twelve old bedesmen? And what if he did! Some other Jupiter, some other Mr. Slope, would come and turn him out of St. Cuthbert's. Surely he could not have been wrong all ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... is given in the last article. From the 3rd of September all the royal decrees bear the significant words, "with the assent of our dearest cousin Henry Duke of Lancaster." He commenced his reign on the 29th of September in reality, when he forced Richard to abdicate; but officially, on the 1st of October, 1399. His first regnal act was to grant to himself all the "honours of descent" derived from his father; in other words, to revoke his own attainder. He was crowned on the 13th of October. A year later, November 25th, 1400, Archbishop Arundel received ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... our people, nihilism would soon become the dominant factor of Russian politics, and official oppression would cease to exist. If we had others like you, as good and as beautiful as you are, the czar would abdicate, or would consent to give us a parliament. As it is, the struggle has only just begun, and I greatly fear that neither I nor you, young though you are, will live to ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman

... liberties, but were under the rule of a bishop. As this personage was usually elected from the house of the Duke of Savoy, Geneva had become little better than a dependency of that state. The first years of the sixteenth century had been turbulent. The bishop, John, had at one time been forced to abdicate his authority, but later had tried to resume it. The Archbishop of Vienne, Geneva's metropolitan, had then excommunicated the city and invited Duke Charles III of Savoy to punish it. The citizens rose under Bonivard, renounced the authority of the pope, expelled the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... be useless for the few short moments longer to disguise the fact that I happen to have drawn King this Twelfth Night, but that another Sovereign will very soon sit upon my inconstant throne. To-night I abdicate, or, what is much the same thing in the modern annals of Royalty—I am politely dethroned. This melancholy reflection, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to a very small point, personal to myself, upon which I will beg your permission to ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... previous night, it was with some restraint that he addressed her; and there was wanting, also, something of his cheerful alacrity of manner, when he requested the stranger who had taken the box-seat, to yield it to a lady. The stranger's mood seemed uncongenial, for he declined to abdicate, intimating that there was room for the lady between himself and the driver, if she insisted ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... authority of the Emperor ceased to exist. Moreover the succession was regulated entirely by the Fujiwara; and even the duration of each reign was made to depend upon their policy. It was deemed advisable to compel Emperors to abdicate at an early age, and after abdicating to become Buddhist monks,—the successor chosen being often a mere child. There is record of an Emperor ascending the throne at the age of two, and abdicating at the age of four; another Mikado ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... angry goddess, once repulsed, returns no more. The dawn comes up the sky and confirms the scorned watch. The golden daggers of the morning prick in under my eyelids, and Petronius introduces himself upon the scene once more to announce, that, if I don't wish to be corded up myself, I must abdicate that bed. The threat does not terrify me. Indeed, nothing at the moment seems more inviting than to be corded up and let alone; but duty still binds me to life, and, assuring Petronius that the just law will do that service for him, if he does not mend his ways, I slowly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... usurpation of the rights of subjects, to seek to prescribe what shall be accepted as true, or rejected as false, or what opinions should actuate men in their worship of God. (4) All these questions fall within a man's natural right, which he cannot abdicate even with his ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza

... or for the adorning of what other suppositions, they frame in a manner innumerable differences and forms of bodies in the soul, there is none can say, unless it be that they remove, or rather wholly abdicate and destroy, the common and usual notions, to introduce other foreign and strange ones. For it is very absurd that, making all virtues and vices—and with them all arts, memories, fancies, passions, impulses, and assents—to be bodies, they should affirm that they neither lie nor subsist ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... Indian and Platonic absolutism, seek to suspend the will in view of some supernatural destiny. Pantheism subordinates morally what it finds to be dependent in existence; its religion bids human reason and interest abdicate before cosmic forces, instead of standing out, like Buddhism and Christianity, for salvation, for spiritual extrication, from a world which they regard as delusive and fallen. The world of German absolutism, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... not in its libraries; their strength has been in their character, their mission civilization in its widest and loftiest sense. They have ruled not with the "Divine right of kings," but with the Divine right of queens, which is quite a different title, undisputed and secure to them, if they do not abdicate it of themselves or drag it into the field of controversy to be matched and measured against the Divine or human rights of kings. "The heaven of heavens is the Lord's, but the earth He has given to the children of men," and to woman He seems to have assigned the borderland between the two, ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart

... attitude toward women is even more clearly expressed by Mr. H. B. Marriot-Watson in his article on "The American Woman" in the "Nineteenth Century" for June, 1904, where he says: "Her constitutional restlessness has caused her to abdicate those functions which alone excuse or explain her existence." This is a peculiarly happy and condensed expression of the relative position of women during our androcentric culture. The man was accepted as the race type without one dissentient voice; and the woman—a strange, diverse ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... have a dull time of it till they are married, when 'Vive la liberte!' becomes their motto. In America, as everyone knows, girls early sign the declaration of independence, and enjoy their freedom with republican zest, but the young matrons usually abdicate with the first heir to the throne and go into a seclusion almost as close as a French nunnery, though by no means as quiet. Whether they like it or not, they are virtually put upon the shelf as soon as the wedding excitement is over, and most of them might exclaim, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... Roman, 432-67. An excrescence of this theory is the foolish story that "Bishop" Heliodorus, being called upon by a provincial synod either to destroy his erotic books or to abdicate his position, preferred the latter alternative. The date of the real Heliodorus is perhaps the end of the third or the first half of ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... Orestes, who had escaped from Pavia, was taken and put to death at Placentia, and on September 4 Paulus his brother was taken in the Pineta outside Classis by Ravenna and was slain. The gates of Ravenna were open, Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor in the West, was forced to abdicate and was sent by Odoacer to the famous villa that Lucullus had built for himself long and long ago in Campania, and was granted a pension of six thousand soldi, and Odoacer reigned as the first king of Italy; the western empire, as such, was at ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... plunged into the old story about English selfishness, and greed, and duplicity. But the climax related to Spain, and it amounted to this: they agreed that the Bourbons of the Spanish throne should be made to abdicate, and Bonaparte's relations set up as ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... take extreme measures; but, as De Wing says, Mukhum Dass was an awful undesirable. If we hanged Gungadhura, we'd almost have to put one of his five sons on the throne to succeed him. If be abdicates, we can please ourselves. I think I can persuade him to abdicate—if Norwood, for instance, knows of any way to gather secret evidence about that murder—secret, you understand me, Norwood. We need that for a ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... to territorial legislation, but it suggested a far-reaching change in our colonial policy. It was the logical conclusion of popular sovereignty practically applied.[934] Congress was invited to abdicate all but the most meagre power in organizing new Territories. The task of framing an organic act for the government of a Territory was to be left to a convention chosen by adult male citizens who were in actual residence; but this organic law must be republican ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson



Words linked to "Abdicate" :   vacate, give up, resign, abdicator, abdication, abdicable



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com