English
remit
Pronunciation

Verb

  • (RP) IPA: /ɹɪˈmɪt/
  • (America) IPA: /ɹiˈmɪt/, /ɹɪˈmɪt/

    Noun

  • (RP) IPA: /ˈɹiːmɪt/, /ɹɪˈmɪt/
  • (America) IPA: /ˈɹimɪt/, /ɹiˈmɪt/, /ɹɪˈmɪt/
Verb

remit (remits, present participle remitting; past and past participle remitted)

  1. (transitive) To transmit or send (e.g. money in payment); to supply.
    • 1728, Daniel Defoe, Some Considerations on the Reasonableness and Necessity of Encreasing and Encouraging the Seamen, London, Chapter 3, p. 45,
      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;
    • 1850, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Chapter 18,
      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.
    • 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
      The Supreme Court today allowed major sponsors, including LG Electronics India (LGEI), to remit foreign exchange for the tournament.
  2. (transitive) To forgive, pardon (a wrong#Noun|wrong, offence, etc.).
    • circa 1604, William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act V, Scene 1,
      Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal
      Remit thy other forfeits.
    • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Gospel of John 20.23,
      Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Dublin: John Smith, Volume 2, Book 7, Chapter 9, p. 39,
      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;
    • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin 2010, p. 307:
      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’.
  3. (transitive) To refrain from exacting or enforcing.
    to remit the performance of an obligation
    • 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;
    • 1849, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, Volume I, Chapter 1, p. 33,
      The sovereign was undoubtedly competent to remit penalties without limit.
    • 1881, Mark Twain, The Prince and the Pauper, Conclusion,
      He also took that old lawyer out of prison and remitted his fine.
  4. (transitive, obsolete) To give up; omit; cease doing.
    • 1761, George Colman the Elder, 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.
    • 1803, Robert Charles Dallas, The History of the Maroons, London: Longman and Rees, Volume 1, Letter 5, p. 125,
      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.
    • 1848, Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Chapter 37,
      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 […]
  5. (transitive) To allow (something) to slacken, to relax (one's attention etc.).
    • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 2, lines 210-211,
      Our Supream Foe in time may much remit
      His anger,
    • 1774, Oliver Goldsmith, An History of the Earth: and Animated Nature, London: J. Nourse, Volume 1, Chapter 20, p. 352,
      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.
    • 1846, Herman Melville, Typee, Chapter 18,
      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.
  6. (intransitive, obsolete) To show a lessening or abatement (of a specified quality).
    • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 54573970 ↗:
      , New York 2001, p.132-3:
      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.
    • 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. (intransitive, obsolete) To diminish, abate.
    • 1695, John Woodward (naturalist), An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth and Terrestrial Bodies, London: Richard Wilkin, Part 4, p. 198,
      [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;
    • 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:
    • 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.
  8. (transitive) To refer (something or someone) for deliberation, judgment, etc. (to a particular body or person).
    • 1630, John Hayward (historian), The Life and Raigne of Edward VI of England, London: John Partridge, p. 119,
      […] 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.
    • 1700, John Dryden (translator), “Sigismonda and Guiscardo, from Giovanni Boccaccio” in Fables, Ancient and Modern, London: Jacob Tonson, p. ,
      The Pris’ner was remitted to the Guard.
    • 1765, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Dublin: John Exshaw et al., 4th edition, 1771, Book 3, Chapter 10, p. 190,
      In this case, the law remits him to his antient and more certain right […]
  9. (transitive, obsolete) To send back.
  10. (transitive, archaic) To give or deliver up; surrender; resign.
    • circa 1594 William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, Act V, Scene 2,
      Princess of France. What, will you have me, or your pearl again?
      Biron. Neither of either; I remit both twain.
  11. (transitive) To restore or replace.
    • 1591, Edmund Spenser, “Prosopopoia: or Mother Hubberds Tale” in Complaints, London: William Ponsonbie,
      […] he bad the Lyon be remitted
      Into his seate, and those same treachours vile
      Be punished for their presumptuous guile.
    • 1630, John Hayward (historian), The Life and Raigne of Edward VI of England, London: John Partridge, p. 117,
      […] the Archbishop was retained prisoner, but after a short time remitted to his liberty.
  12. (transitive) To postpone.
  13. (transitive, obsolete) To refer (someone to something), direct someone's attention to something.
    • 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 […]
    • 1692, John Milton, A Defence of the People of England, Amsterdam [?], Chapter 8, p. 180,
      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 […]
    • 1762, Henry Home, Lord Kames, Elements of Criticism, Edinburgh: A. Kincaid & J. Bell, Volume 1, Chapter 3, p. 247,
      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.
Related terms Translations Translations Translations Noun

remit (plural remits)

  1. (chiefly British) Terms of reference; set of responsibilities; scope.
    • 2000: Scientific Working Group on Good Laboratory Practice issues, Handbook: Good Laboratory Practice read on World Health Organisation website at [https://web.archive.org/web/20060325195225/http://www.who.int/tdr/publications/publications/pdf/glp-handbook.pdf] on 14 May 2006:
      WHO/TDR should prepare a volume containing ... important issues in the performance of studies that fall outside of the GLP remit.
    • 2001: H. Meinardi et al, ILAE Commission, The treatment gap in epilepsy: the current situation and ways forward read at on 14 May 2006:
      However, this is beyond the remit of this particular article.
    • 2003: Andy Macleod, Cisco Systems, Pulling it all together - the 21st Century Campus read at on 14 May 2006:
      Next steps ... Create one IS organisation and extend remit to all HE activities.
    • 2012, The Economist, Sep 29th 2012 issue, Chile's economic statistics: For richer—or poorer ↗
      Chile needs to gather together its statisticians into a single agency, such as a new and improved INE, and give it more autonomy and a broader remit.
  2. (legal) A communication from a superior court to a subordinate court.
Synonyms Translations

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