Definition of "remit"
remit
verb
third-person singular simple present remits, present participle remitting, simple past and past participle remitted
(transitive) To transmit or send (e.g. money in payment); to supply.
Quotations
Such a Step as this would raise a Succession of able Seamen, and in a few Years would come to remit a thousand, or perhaps two or three thousand sturdy Youths every Year into the general Class of English Seamen;
1728, Daniel Defoe, chapter 3, in Some Considerations on the Reasonableness and Necessity of Encreasing and Encouraging the Seamen, London, page 45
(transitive) To forgive, pardon (a wrong, offence, etc.).
Quotations
Mrs. Western was a very good-natured Woman, and ordinarily of a forgiving Temper. She had lately remitted the Trespass of a Stage-coach Man, who had overturned her Post-chaise into a Ditch;
1749, Henry Fielding, chapter 9, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], book 7, page 39
(transitive, obsolete) To give up; omit; cease doing.
Quotations
He who connected himself with a woman whose brother, sister, or other relations, were fugitives, would probably be tempted to remit his pursuit of them, and even to favour their concealment.
1803, Robert Charles Dallas, The History of the Maroons, London: Longman and Rees, Volume 1, Letter 5, p. 125
(intransitive, obsolete) To show a lessening or abatement (of a specified quality).
Quotations
Great Alexander in the midst of all his prosperity […], when he saw one of his wounds bleed, remembered that he was but a man, and remitted of his pride.
1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps
(intransitive, obsolete) To diminish, abate.
Quotations
[The water] sustains these Particles, and carries them on together with it ’till such time as its Motion begins to remit and be less rapid than it was at, and near its Source;
1695, John Woodward, An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth and Terrestrial Bodies, London: Richard Wilkin, Part 4, p. 198
(transitive) To refer (something or someone) for deliberation, judgment, etc. (to a particular body or person).
Quotations
[...] in grieuous and inhumane crimes, in such as ouerthrow the foundation of state, in such as shake the surety of humane society, I conceiue it more fit that offenders should be remitted to their Prince to be punished in the place where they haue offended.
1630, John Hayward, The Life and Raigne of King Edward the Sixt, London: John Partridge, page 119
(transitive, archaic) To give or deliver up; surrender; resign.
Quotations
Princess of France. What, will you have me, or your pearl again?Biron. Neither of either; I remit both twain.
c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene ii]
(transitive, obsolete) To refer (someone to something), direct someone's attention to something.
Quotations
You wonder how it comes to paſs that a King of Great Britain muſt now-adays be looked upon as one of the Magiſtrates of the Kingdom only; whereas in all other Kingly Governments in Chriſtendom, Kings are inveſted with a Free and Absolute Authority. For the Scots, I remit you to [George] Buchanan: For France, your own Native Countrey, to which you ſeem to be a ſtranger, to Hottoman's Franco Gallia, and Girardus a French Hiſtorian; [...]
1692, John Milton, chapter VIII, in [Joseph Washington], transl., A Defence of the People of England, […]: In Answer to Salmasius’s Defence of the King, [London?: s.n.], page 180
noun
plural remits