Definition of "relinquish" []

• To retire from; give up or abandon. (verb-transitive)
• To put aside or desist from (something practiced, professed, or intended). (verb-transitive)
• To let go; surrender. (verb-transitive)
• To cease holding physically; release: relinquish a grip. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "As the plane makes its final approach into Chicago, I think of the word relinquish."
• "No circumstances of the Norman Conquest more forcibly illustrate the humiliation of the conquered people, than the measures by which the invaders imposed their language on the public courts of the country, and endeavored to make it permanently usurp the place of the mother-tongue of the despised multitude; and no fact more signally displays our conservative temper than the general reluctance of English society to relinquish the use of the French words and phrases which still tincture the language of parliament, and the procedures of Westminster Hall, recalling to our minds the insolent domination of a few powerful families who occupied our country by force, and ruled our forefathers with vigorous injustice."
• "China has no claim to Taiwan, so it is not being asked to "relinquish" anything, nor is what is happening "reunification.""