resist

From Middle English resisten, from Middle French resister and Old French resistre, and their source, Latin resistere, from re- + sistere (“cause to stand”).

• IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈzɪst/, /ɹəˈzɪst/

• Audio (US)

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• Hyphenation: re‧sist
• Rhymes: -ɪst

resist (third-person singular simple present resists, present participle resisting, simple past and past participle resisted)

1. (transitive) To attempt to counter the actions or effects of.
   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Citadel:

     Shepard: You could have resisted. You could have fought! Instead, you surrendered. You quit.

   • 2013 June 28, Joris Luyendijk, “Our banks are out of control”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 3, page 21:

     Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic who still resists the idea that something drastic needs to happen for him to turn his life around.

2. (transitive) To withstand the actions of.
   • 1762, Charles Johnstone, The Reverie; or, A Flight to the Paradise of Fools‎, volume 2, Dublin: Printed by Dillon Chamberlaine, →OCLC, page 202:

     At length, one night, when the company by ſome accident broke up much ſooner than ordinary, ſo that the candles were not half burnt out, ſhe was not able to reſiſt the temptation, but reſolved to have them ſome way or other. Accordingly, as ſoon as the hurry was over, and the ſervants, as ſhe thought, all gone to ſleep, ſhe ſtole out of her bed, and went down ſtairs, naked to her ſhift as ſhe was, with a deſign to ſteal them […]

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

     The preposterous altruism too! […] Resist not evil. It is an insane immolation of self—as bad intrinsically as fakirs stabbing themselves or anchorites warping their spines in caves scarcely large enough for a fair-sized dog.

3. (intransitive) To oppose; to refuse to accept.
4. (transitive, obsolete) To be distasteful to.
   • c. 1607–1608, William Shakeſpeare, The Late, And much admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. […], London: Imprinted at London for Henry Goſſon,  […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:

     These cates resist me,

• This is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (-ing). See Appendix:English catenative verbs.

• gainstay
• oppose
• withset

• obey
• submit

resist (countable and uncountable, plural resists)

1. A protective coating or covering. [1]

• Istres, Reists, Sister, reists, resits, restis, risest, sister