ABDICATE

AB'DICATE, verb transitive [Latin abdica; ab and dico, to dedicate, to bestow, but the literal primary sense of dico is to send or thrust.]1. In a general sense, to relinquish, renounce, or abandon.2. To abandon an office or trust, without a formal resignation to those who conferred it, or without their consent; also to abandon a throne, without a formal surrender of the crown.3. To relinquish an office before the expiration of the time of service.4. To reject; to renounce; to abandon as a right.5. To cast away; to renounce; as to abdicate our mental faculties [Unusual.]6. In the civil law, to disclaim a son and expel him from the family, as a father; to disinherit during the life of the father.AB'DICATE, verb intransitive To renounce; to abandon; to cast off; to relinquish, as a right, power, or trust.Though a King may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy.

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abdicate. abdicate, put away, refuse, or forsake.

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abdicate. Abdicate, v.t. to abandon an office or power, without a formal resignation

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Ab″di‐cate (�), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Abdicated (�); p. pr. & vb. n. Abdicating.] [[L. abdicatus, p. p. of abdicare; ab + dicare to proclaim, akin to dicere to say. See Diction.]] 1. 1. 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.
☞ 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. Gibbon. 2. 2. To renounce; to relinquish; — said of authority, a trust, duty, right, etc.
He abdicates all right to be his own governor. Burke. The understanding abdicates its functions. Froude. 3. 3. To reject; to cast off. Bp. Hall.
4. 4. (Civil Law) To disclaim and expel from the family, as a father his child; to disown; to disinherit.
Syn. — 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.