Library / English Dictionary

DESIST

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Choose not to consume

Example:

I abstain from alcohol

Synonyms:

abstain; desist; refrain

Classified under:

Verbs of eating and drinking

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "desist"):

fast (abstain from eating)

fast (abstain from certain foods, as for religious or medical reasons)

avoid; keep off (refrain from certain foods or beverages)

teetotal (practice teetotalism and abstain from the consumption of alcoholic beverages)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP
Somebody ----s VERB-ing

Credits

 Context examples: 

An extinguished candle stood on the table; she was bending over the fire, and seemed reading in a little black book, like a prayer-book, by the light of the blaze: she muttered the words to herself, as most old women do, while she read; she did not desist immediately on my entrance: it appeared she wished to finish a paragraph.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I have myself directed some attention, during the past week, to the art of baking; and my son Wilkins has issued forth with a walking-stick and driven cattle, when permitted, by the rugged hirelings who had them in charge, to render any voluntary service in that direction—which I regret to say, for the credit of our nature, was not often; he being generally warned, with imprecations, to desist.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)