Definition of "secede" [se•cede]

• To withdraw formally from membership in an organization, association, or alliance. (verb-intransitive)

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.

• "With any luck, maybe those Southerners will follow Rick Perry and once again secede from the Union ..."
• "Yeh, right, the way to secede is to vote someone into the government your trying to secede from."
• "Here on January 7, 1861, Alabama voted to secede from the Union, and on February 18, on the steps of the portico, Jefferson Davis took his oath of office as President of the Confederate States."