RESIGNATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does resignation mean? 

• RESIGNATION (noun)
  The noun RESIGNATION has 3 senses:

1. acceptance of despair

2. the act of giving up (a claim or office or possession etc.)

3. a formal document giving notice of your intention to resign

  Familiarity information: RESIGNATION used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RESIGNATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Acceptance of despair

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

resignation; surrender

Hypernyms ("resignation" is a kind of...):

despair (the feeling that everything is wrong and nothing will turn out well)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "resignation"):

defeatism (acceptance of the inevitability of defeat)

Derivation:

resign (accept as inevitable)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The act of giving up (a claim or office or possession etc.)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("resignation" is a kind of...):

speech act (the use of language to perform some act)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "resignation"):

abdication; stepping down (a formal resignation and renunciation of powers)

renouncement; renunciation (an act (spoken or written) declaring that something is surrendered or disowned)

Derivation:

resign (leave (a job, post, or position) voluntarily)

resign (give up or retire from a position)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A formal document giving notice of your intention to resign

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Context example:

he submitted his resignation as of next month

Hypernyms ("resignation" is a kind of...):

document; papers; written document (writing that provides information (especially information of an official nature))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "resignation"):

abdication; stepping down (the act of abdicating)

Derivation:

resign (give up or retire from a position)

 Context examples 

He began to think it was to be, and that he could not prevent it—a very promising step of the mind on its way to resignation.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

She indeed gained the resignation she desired.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Amy shook her head and opened her sketchbook with an air of resignation, but she had made up her mind to lecture 'that boy' and in a minute she began again.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Holmes shrugged his shoulders with a glance of comic resignation towards the Colonel, and the talk drifted away into less dangerous channels.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There was hope in his words, and comfort; and they made for resignation.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

"It is the way of the white man," Ebbits mumbled with an air of resignation.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

My friend did not appear to be depressed by his failure, but shrugged his shoulders in half-humorous resignation.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The two forces made him lay down his gum-brush with a sigh of resignation and push back his chair.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She watched, observed, reflected, and finally determined that this was not a case of fortitude or of resignation only.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

He passed his hand complacently over his bald head, and said with ostentatious resignation: My dear, we will not anticipate the decrees of fortune.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)