DEVIL DICTIONARY
abdication
n. An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the
high temperature of the throne.
Poor Isabella's Dead, whose abdication
Set all tongues wagging in the Spanish nation.
For that performance 'twere unfair to scold her:
She wisely left a throne too hot to hold her.
To History she'll be no royal riddle --
Merely a plain parched pea that jumped the griddle.
G.J.
THESAURUS
abdication
abjuration, abjurement, cession, demission, deposal, dropping out, emeritus status, forced resignation, forswearing, handing over, relinquishment, renouncement, renunciation, resignation, retiral, retirement, superannuation, surrender, voluntary resignation, waiver, withdrawal, withdrawing, yielding
ROGET THESAURUS
abdication
Laxity
N
laxity, laxness, looseness, slackness, toleration, freedom, anarchy, interregnum, relaxation, loosening, remission, dead letter, brutum fulmen, misrule, license, licentiousness, insubordination, lynch law, nihilism, reign of violence, dethronement, deposition, usurpation,
abdication, lax, loose, slack, remiss, weak, relaxed, licensed, reinless, unbridled, anarchical, unauthorized, adespotic.
Resignation
N
resignation, retirement,
abdication, renunciation, abjuration, abandonment, relinquishment, abdicant, Othello's occupation's gone.