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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

... 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, his son, was less fortunate ...

— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... 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 world accounts ...

— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... no 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 ...

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

... brought on the church, but which it was, perhaps, not yet too late to rectify; and he concluded by admonishing her, that, if she valued her own fame, or the interests of her soul, she would compel this man of yesterday to abdicate the office, for which he had proved himself so incompetent, and return to ...

— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... better than any government can settle them. Now it is most important that this point should be fully cleared up. We certainly ought not to usurp functions which do not properly belong to us: but, on the other hand, we ought not to abdicate functions which do properly belong to us. I hardly know which is the greater pest to society, a paternal government, that is to say a prying, meddlesome government, which intrudes itself into every part of human life, ...

— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

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