Resiled

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To retract or back out from a previously made promise or obligation
2. To officially or formally withdraw from an agreement one had accepted before
3. To abandon or step back from a contract, deal, or promise that was earlier agreed upon

Etymology: "Resiled" is the past tense of "resile," a verb that once meant nothing more than to spring back. Its Latin source, "resiliō," combined "re-" (back) with "saliō" (to jump), so the physical image was of something leaping or recoiling. English borrowed the idea through Middle French "resiler," which kept that sense of rebounding or drawing back. The shift to legal withdrawal happened as the word moved from the literal to the figurative. A thing that springs back from a position is a thing that retreats from it, and so the word came to describe pulling back from a commitment or a promise. The sense of formally backing out of an agreement one had already accepted is the one that survives today, while the original picture of bouncing back has largely faded from ordinary use.

Synonyms: withdrew, retreated

Antonyms: persisted, continued