Definition of "leave"

To have a consequence or remnant.

1. (transitive) To cause or allow (something) to remain as available; to refrain from taking (something) away; to stop short of consuming or otherwise depleting (something) entirely.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • […] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.

     1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company

   • Plant breeding is always a numbers game. […]. The wild species we use are rich in genetic variation, […]. In addition, we are looking for rare alleles, so the more plants we try, the better. These rarities may be new mutations, or they can be existing ones that are neutral—or are even selected against—in a wild population. A good example is mutations that disrupt seed dispersal, leaving the seeds on the heads long after they are ripe.

     2013 May-June, David Van Tassel, Lee DeHaan, “Wild Plants to the Rescue”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3

2. (transitive or intransitive, copulative) To cause, to result in.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • There was some laughter, and Roddle was left free to expand his ideas on the periodic visits of cowboys to the town. “Mason Rickets, he had ten big punkins a-sittin' in front of his store, an' them fellers from the Upside-down-F ranch shot 'em up […].”

     1899, Stephen Crane, chapter 1, in Twelve O'Clock

   • The slightest effort made the patient cough. He would stand leaning on a stick and holding a hand to his side, and when the paroxysm had passed it left him shaking.

     1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company

   • [Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages.

     2013 July 20, “Out of the gloom”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845

3. (transitive) To put; to place; to deposit; to deliver, with a sense of withdrawing oneself.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • Leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way.

     1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Matthew 5:24

   • The foot / That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks.

     c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene iii]

To depart; to separate from.

1. To let be or do without interference.  examples

2. (transitive) To depart from; to end one's connection or affiliation with.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • I was about to say that I had known the Celebrity from the time he wore kilts. But I see I will have to amend that, because he was not a celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after I left New York for the West.

     1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

3. (transitive) To end one's membership in (a group); to terminate one's affiliation with (an organization); to stop participating in (a project).  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • If we were to leave, the economic impact on a number of European countries would be severe.

     2018, The Independent, "Brexit: Theresa May 'not bluffing' in threat to leave EU without a deal, Tory minister Liam Fox says"

4. (intransitive) To depart; to go away from a certain place or state.  examples

To transfer something.

1. (transitive) To transfer possession of after death.  examples

2. (transitive) To give (something) to someone; to deliver (something) to a repository; to deposit.  examples

3. (transitive) To transfer responsibility or attention of (something) (to someone); to stop being concerned with.  examples

(intransitive, obsolete) To remain (behind); to stay.  quotations

(transitive, archaic) To stop, desist from; to "leave off" (+ noun / gerund).  quotations

(cricket) The action of the batsman not attempting to play at the ball.  examples

(billiards) The arrangement of balls in play that remains after a shot is made (which determines whether the next shooter — who may be either the same player, or an opponent — has good options, or only poor ones).  quotations  examples

Permission to be absent; time away from one's work.  examples

(dated or law) Permission.  quotations  examples

(dated) Farewell, departure.  examples

(transitive) To give leave to; allow; permit; let; grant.  examples

(intransitive, rare) To produce leaves or foliage.  quotations

(obsolete) To raise; to levy.  quotations