revoke
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɹɪˈvoʊk/
ipa: /ɹɪˈvəʊk/
ipa: /rɪˈvəʊk/
rhymes: -əʊk
Forms: form: revokes
form: revoking
form: revoked
form: revoked
Etymology: Borrowed from Middle French révoquer, from Latin revocare, from re- + voco, vocare. Doublet of revocate.
Senses: examples: text: Your driver's license will be revoked.
text: I hereby revoke all former wills.
text: 1539, Myles Coverdale et al., (translators), Great Bible, London: Thomas Berthelet, 1540, deuterocanonical addition to the Book of Esther, heading to Chapter 16,
The Copye of the letters of Arthaxerses, wherby he reuoketh those which he fyrst sende forth.
text: […] If, on the tenth day following,
Thy banish’d trunk be found in our dominions,
The moment is thy death. Away! By Jupiter,
This shall not be revok’d.
ref: c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:
text: I formd them free, and free they must remain,
Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change
Thir nature, and revoke the high Decree
Unchangeable, Eternal, which ordain’d
Thir freedom,
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 124-128:
glosses: To cancel or invalidate by withdrawing or reversing.
examples: text: They had just sat down at the bridge table, and Mrs Lackersteen had just revoked out of pure nervousness, when there was a heavy thump on the roof.
ref: 1934 October, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 22, in Burmese Days, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, →OCLC:
glosses: To fail to follow suit in a game of cards when holding a card in that suit.
examples: text: So well he did his busie paines apply,
That the faint sprite he did reuoke againe,
To her fraile mansion of mortality.
ref: 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 392:
synonyms: recall
glosses: To call or bring back.
examples: text: Yet she with pitthy words and counsell sad,
Still stroue their stubborne rages to reuoke,
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 213:
synonyms: repress
restrain
glosses: To hold back.
examples: text: A flaming fire, ymixt with smouldry smoke,
And stinking Sulphure, that with griesly hate
And dreadfull horror did all entraunce choke,
Enforced them their forward footing to reuoke.
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 566:
synonyms: draw back
withdraw
glosses: To move (something) back or away.
examples: late 1600s-early 1700s, Robert South, Sermon on Proverbs 18.14 in Sermons Preached on Several Occasions, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1823, p. 132,
A man, by revoking and recollecting within himself former passages, will be still apt to inculcate these sad memoirs to his conscience.
synonyms: recollect
remember
glosses: To call back to mind.
Derived terms: re-revoke
Related terms: revocation