remit
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɹɪˈmɪt/
ipa: /ɹiˈmɪt/
ipa: /ɹɪˈmɪt/
rhymes: -ɪt
Forms: form: remits
form: remitting
form: remitted
form: remitted
form: remytte
Etymology: From Middle English remitten, from Latin remittere (“to send, send back”). Compare Old French remettre, remetre, remitter.
Senses: examples: text: Such a Step as this would raise a Succession of able Seamen, and in a few Years would come to remit a thousand, or perhaps two or three thousand sturdy Youths every Year into the general Class of English Seamen;
ref: 1728, Daniel Defoe, chapter 3, in Some Considerations on the Reasonableness and Necessity of Encreasing and Encouraging the Seamen, London, page 45:
text: Doctor Strong refers to me in public as a promising young scholar. Mr. Dick is wild with joy, and my aunt remits me a guinea by the next post.
ref: 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 18, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC:
text: The Supreme Court today allowed major sponsors, including LG Electronics India (LGEI), to remit foreign exchange for the tournament.
ref: 2003: The Hindu, World Cup sponsors can remit money in forex: SC read at https://web.archive.org/web/20060308013536/http://www.hinduonnet.com/2003/02/01/stories/2003020104090100.htm on 14 May 2006
glosses: To transmit or send (e.g. money in payment); to supply.
examples: text: Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal
Remit thy other forfeits.
ref: c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
text: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, John 20:23:
text: Mrs. Western was a very good-natured Woman, and ordinarily of a forgiving Temper. She had lately remitted the Trespass of a Stage-coach Man, who had overturned her Post-chaise into a Ditch;
ref: 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter 9, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book VII, page 39:
text: So he said that there was no sin to remit in baptism: ‘sin is not born with a man, it is subsequently committed by the man; for it is shown to be a fault, not of nature, but of the human will’.
ref: 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 307:
glosses: To forgive, pardon (a wrong, offence, etc.).
examples: text: to remit the performance of an obligation
text: 1798, Hannah Brand, Huniades; or, The Siege of Belgrade, Act V, Scene 8, in Plays and Poems, Norwich, p. 131,
I knelt for pardon, for this breach of Oath,
Which, thou forgiving, I then shall hope
Heaven will remit hereafter punishment;
text: The sovereign was undoubtedly competent to remit penalties without limit.
ref: 1849, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter I, in The History of England from the Accession of James II, volume I, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC, page 33:
text: He also took that old lawyer out of prison and remitted his fine.
ref: 1881, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], “Conclusion”, in The Prince and the Pauper: A Tale for Young People of All Ages, Montreal, Que.: Dawson Brothers, →OCLC:
glosses: To refrain from exacting or enforcing; to cancel.
examples: text: 1761, George Colman, The Genius, No. 12, 19 November, 1761, in Prose on Several Occasions, London: T. Cadel, 1787, p. 124,
Among our own sex, there is no race of men more apt to indulge a spirit of acrimony, and to remit their natural Good Humour, than authors.
text: He who connected himself with a woman whose brother, sister, or other relations, were fugitives, would probably be tempted to remit his pursuit of them, and even to favour their concealment.
ref: 1803, Robert Charles Dallas, The History of the Maroons, London: Longman and Rees, Volume 1, Letter 5, p. 125:
text: I was obliged at last almost entirely to remit my visits to the Grove, at the expense of deeply offending Mrs. Hargrave and seriously afflicting poor Esther, who really values my society for want of better [...]
ref: 1848, Anne Brontë, chapter 37, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:
glosses: To give up; omit; cease doing.
examples: text: Our Supream Foe in time may much remit
His anger,
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book II”, 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 210-211:
text: The wind at sea generally blows with an even steady gale; the wind at land puffs by intervals, encreasing its strength, and remitting it, without any apparent cause.
ref: 1774, Oliver Goldsmith, chapter 20, in An History of the Earth: and Animated Nature, volume 1, London: J. Nourse, page 352:
text: Their confidence revived, they might in a short time remit in some degree their watchfulness over my movements, and I should then be the better enabled to avail myself of any opportunity which presented itself for escape.
ref: 1846, Herman Melville, chapter 18, in Typee:
glosses: To allow (something) to slacken, to relax (one's attention etc.).
examples: text: Great Alexander in the midst of all his prosperity […], when he saw one of his wounds bleed, remembered that he was but a man, and remitted of his pride.
ref: , New York 2001, p.132-3
text: 1775, Samuel Jackson Pratt, The Legend of Benignus, Chapter 5, in Liberal Opinions, upon Animals, Man, and Providence, London: G. Robinson and J. Bew, Volume 1, p. 97,
At the end of about two months, the severity of my fate began to remit of its rigour.
glosses: To show a lessening or abatement (of a specified quality).
examples: text: [The water] sustains these Particles, and carries them on together with it ’till such time as its Motion begins to remit and be less rapid than it was at, and near its Source;
ref: 1695, John Woodward, An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth and Terrestrial Bodies, London: Richard Wilkin, Part 4, p. 198:
text: 1720, Alexander Pope, The Iliad of Homer, London: Bernard Lintott, Volume 6, “Observations on the Twenty-Second Book,” no. 25, p. 52,
… this is very agreeable to the Nature of Achilles; his Anger abates very slowly; it is stubborn, yet still it remits:
text: 1783, Samuel Johnson, letter to James Boswell dated 30 September, 1783, in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, London: Charles Dilly, 1791, Volume 2, p. 467,
… I have been for these ten days much harrassed with the gout, but that has now remitted.
glosses: To diminish, abate.
examples: text: [...] in grieuous and inhumane crimes, in such as ouerthrow the foundation of state, in such as shake the surety of humane society, I conceiue it more fit that offenders should be remitted to their Prince to be punished in the place where they haue offended.
ref: 1630, John Hayward, The Life and Raigne of King Edward the Sixt, London: John Partridge, page 119:
text: The Pris’ner was remitted to the Guard.
ref: 1700, [John] Dryden, “Sigismonda and Guiscardo, from Boccace”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
text: In this case, the law remits him to his antient and more certain right [...]
ref: 176, William Blackstone, chapter 10, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, book, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 190:
glosses: To refer (something or someone) for deliberation, judgment, etc. (to a particular body or person).
glosses: To send back.
examples: text: Princess of France. What, will you have me, or your pearl again?
Biron. Neither of either; I remit both twain.
ref: c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:
glosses: To give or deliver up; surrender; resign.
examples: text: […] he bad the Lyon be remitted
Into his seate, and those same treachours vile
Be punished for their presumptuous guile.
ref: 1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], “Prosopopoia. Or Mother Hubberds Tale.”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, […], →OCLC:
text: [...] the Archbishop was retained prisoner, but after a short time remitted to his liberty.
ref: a. 1628 (date written), John Hayward, The Life, and Raigne of King Edward the Sixt, London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press, and J. Lichfield at Oxford?] for Iohn Partridge, […], published 1630, →OCLC, page 117:
glosses: To restore or replace.
glosses: To postpone.
examples: text: 1668, Joseph Glanvill, Plus Ultra, or, The Progress and Advancement of Knowledge since the Days of Aristotle, London: James Collins, Preface,
These are the things I thought fit to premise to my Discourse, to which now I remit your Eyes, without adding more …
text: You wonder how it comes to paſs that a King of Great Britain muſt now-adays be looked upon as one of the Magiſtrates of the Kingdom only; whereas in all other Kingly Governments in Chriſtendom, Kings are inveſted with a Free and Absolute Authority. For the Scots, I remit you to [George] Buchanan: For France, your own Native Countrey, to which you ſeem to be a ſtranger, to Hottoman's Franco Gallia, and Girardus a French Hiſtorian; [...]
ref: 1692, John Milton, chapter VIII, in [Joseph Washington], transl., A Defence of the People of England, […]: In Answer to Salmasius’s Defence of the King, [London?]: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 180:
text: For the definitions of regularity, uniformity, proportion, and order, if thought necessary, I remit my reader to the appendix at the end of the book.
ref: 1762, Henry Home, Lord Kames, chapter 3, in Elements of Criticism, volume 1, Edinburgh: A. Kincaid & J. Bell, page 247:
glosses: To refer (someone to something), direct someone's attention to something.
Derived terms: word: remitment
word: remittance
word: remittee
word: remitter
alt: via remitting
word: unremitting
Related terms: remission
remittent
mission