Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Abdicate

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. 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. 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. To reject; to cast off. [Obs.] Bp. Hall.

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.

Ab′di·cate, 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. Burke.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.