abdicate v : give up, such as power, as of monarchs and emperors, or duties and obligations; "The King abdicated when he married a divorcee" [syn: renounce]

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. Note: 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. Usage: 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.

Abdicate \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.

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Abdication (from the Latin abdicatio, disowning, renouncing, from ab, away from, and dicare, to declare, to proclaim as not belonging to one) is the act of renouncing and resigning from a formal office, especially from the supreme office of state. In Roman law the term was also applied to the disowning of a family member, as the disinheriting of a son. The term commonly applies to monarchs, or those who have been formally crowned. A similar term for an elected or appointed official is resignation.

Among the most memorable abdications of antiquity were those of Lucius Cornelius Sulla the Dictator in 79 BC, Emperor Diocletian in AD 305, and Emperor Romulus Augustulus in AD 476.

Probably the most famous abdication in recent memory is that of King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom in 1936. Edward abdicated the British throne in order to marry American divorcée Wallis Simpson, over the objections of the British establishment, the governments of the Commonwealth, the royal family and the Church of England. (See Abdication Crisis of Edward VIII.) This was also the first time in history that the British crown was surrendered entirely voluntarily. Richard II of England, for example, was forced to abdicate after power was seized by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, while Richard was out of the country.

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