Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To give up (a title or possession, for example), especially by formal announcement.
  • intransitive verb To decide or declare that one will no longer adhere to (a belief or position); reject.
  • intransitive verb To decide or declare that one will no longer engage in (a practice) or use (something): synonym: relinquish.
  • intransitive verb To disclaim one's association with (a person or country, for example).
  • intransitive verb To give up, relinquish, or reject something.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To declare against; disown; disclaim; abjure; forswear; refuse to own, acknowledge, or practise.
  • To cast off or reject, as a connection or possession; forsake.
  • In card-playing, to play (a suit) different from what is led: as, he renounced spades.
  • To declare a renunciation.
  • In card-games in which the rule is to follow suit, to play a card of a different suit from that led; in a restricted sense, to have to play a card of another suit when the player has no card of the suit led. Compare revoke.
  • noun In card-games in which the rule is to follow suit, the playing of a card of a different suit from that led.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Card Playing) Act of renouncing.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To make renunciation.
  • intransitive verb (Law) To decline formally, as an executor or a person entitled to letters of administration, to take out probate or letters.
  • transitive verb To declare against; to reject or decline formally; to refuse to own or acknowledge as belonging to one; to disclaim.
  • transitive verb To cast off or reject deliberately; to disown; to dismiss; to forswear.
  • transitive verb (Card Playing) To disclaim having a card of (the suit led) by playing a card of another suit.
  • transitive verb (Law) to decline to act as the executor of a will.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun card games An act of renouncing.
  • verb transitive To give up, resign, surrender.
  • verb transitive To cast off, repudiate.
  • verb transitive To decline further association with someone or something, disown.
  • verb transitive To abandon, forsake, discontinue (an action, habit, intention, etc), sometimes by open declaration.
  • verb intransitive To make a renunciation of something.
  • verb intransitive To surrender formally some right or trust.
  • verb intransitive (cards) To fail to follow suit; playing a card of a different suit when having no card of the suit led.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb give up, such as power, as of monarchs and emperors, or duties and obligations
  • verb turn away from; give up
  • verb cast off
  • verb leave (a job, post, or position) voluntarily

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English renouncen, from Old French renoncer, from Latin renūntiāre, to report : re-, re- + nūntiāre, to announce (from nūntius, messenger; see neu- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin renuntiare.

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Examples

  • We were contemptible to attend to which Edgar Scott, a partial of of unequivocally prolonged standing, has motionless to renounce from a Society, given he feels which he can no longer have a prolonged expostulate home after cooking meetings.

    Philadelphia Reflections: Shakspere Society of Philadelphia admin 2009

  • We were contemptible to attend to which Edgar Scott, a partial of of unequivocally prolonged standing, has motionless to renounce from a Society, given he feels which he can no longer have a prolonged expostulate home after cooking meetings.

    Archive 2009-11-01 admin 2009

  • What I renounce is relying on the proclamation of one language user (e.g.,

    Robert Hartwell Fiske strikes me as a prig and a bully « Motivated Grammar 2009

  • And since it has been determined that love is service, and since to renounce is to serve, then Jees Uck, who was merely a woman of a swart-skinned breed, loved with a great love.

    THE STORY OF JEES UCK 2010

  • If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave.

    White House releases portrait of first family 2009

  • I didn't use the word renounce because it has a specific, legal meaning when talking about citizenship.

    Page 2 2006

  • And since it has been determined that love is service, and since to renounce is to serve, then Jees Uck, who was merely a woman of a swart-skinned breed, loved with a great love.

    The Story of Jees Uck 1904

  • Brady, however, called on Quinn to apologize and "renounce" Hendon, he told the Chicago Tribune.

    Rickey Hendon Calls Bill Brady 'Racist', 'Homophobic' (VIDEO) The Huffington Post News Team 2010

  • Yep, that's "renounce," people, just like Gandhi's exhortation that we "have nothing to do with power."

    Sander Hicks: The Anarchist Jesus of the First Gospel Sander Hicks 2010

  • Jesus warned against the intoxication of power, especially political power, and advised his followers to "renounce" it.

    Sander Hicks: The Anarchist Jesus of the First Gospel Sander Hicks 2010

Comments

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  • "On 25 September 2008, Nihal, a 24-year-old Druze woman said 'I do' to the man she loved. On the same day she had to say goodbye to her parents, siblings and hometown in the occupied Golan. To marry her Druze cousin who lives in Syria proper, she had to make the painful decision of exchanging her Israeli identification card for Syrian citizenship, and thereby renounce her right to return home."

    - 'Occupied Golan: a happy event in a sad setting', icrc.org, 6 Oct 2008.

    October 27, 2008