Word: remit Part of Speech: verb Etymology: From Middle English remitten, from Latin remittere (“to send, send back”). Compare Old French remettre, remetre, remitter. Pronunciation: /ɹɪˈmɪt/, /ɹiˈmɪt/ 1. To transmit or send (e.g. money in payment); to supply. Labels: transitive Example: 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; Example: 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. 2. To forgive, pardon (a wrong, offence, etc.). Labels: transitive Example: Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal Remit thy other forfeits. Example: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. 3. To refrain from exacting or enforcing; to cancel. Labels: transitive Example: to remit the performance of an obligation Example: 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; 4. To give up; omit; cease doing. Labels: obsolete, transitive Example: 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. Example: 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. 5. To allow (something) to slacken, to relax (one's attention etc.). Labels: transitive Example: Our Supream Foe in time may much remit His anger, Example: 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. 6. To show a lessening or abatement (of a specified quality). Labels: intransitive, obsolete Example: 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. Example: 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. 7. To diminish, abate. Labels: intransitive, obsolete Example: [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; Example: 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: 8. To refer (something or someone) for deliberation, judgment, etc. (to a particular body or person). Labels: transitive Example: [...] 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. Example: The Pris’ner was remitted to the Guard. 9. To send back. Labels: obsolete, transitive 10. To give or deliver up; surrender; resign. Labels: archaic, transitive Example: Princess of France. What, will you have me, or your pearl again? Biron. Neither of either; I remit both twain. 11. To restore or replace. Labels: transitive Example: […] he bad the Lyon be remitted Into his seate, and those same treachours vile Be punished for their presumptuous guile. Example: [...] the Archbishop was retained prisoner, but after a short time remitted to his liberty. 12. To postpone. Labels: transitive 13. To refer (someone to something), direct someone's attention to something. Labels: obsolete, transitive Example: 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 … Example: 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; [...]