revoke

Borrowed from Middle French révoquer, from Latin revocare, from re- + voco, vocare. Doublet of revocate.

• Rhymes: -əʊk

revoke (third-person singular simple present revokes, present participle revoking, simple past and past participle revoked)

1. (transitive) To cancel or invalidate by withdrawing or reversing.

   Your driver's license will be revoked.

   I hereby revoke all former wills.

   • 1539, Myles Coverdale et al., (translators), Great Bible, London: Thomas Berthelet, 1540, deuterocanonical addition to the Book of Esther, heading to Chapter 16,

     The Copye of the letters of Arthaxerses, wherby he reuoketh those which he fyrst sende forth.

   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act I, Scene 1,

     […] If, on the tenth day following,

     Thy banish’d trunk be found in our dominions,

     The moment is thy death. Away! By Jupiter,

     This shall not be revok’d.

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 3, lines 124-128,

     I formd them free, and free they must remain,

     Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change

     Thir nature, and revoke the high Decree

     Unchangeable, Eternal, which ordain’d

     Thir freedom,

2. (intransitive) To fail to follow suit in a game of cards when holding a card in that suit.
   • 1934, George Orwell, Burmese Days, Chapter 22,

     They had just sat down at the bridge table, and Mrs Lackersteen had just revoked out of pure nervousness, when there was a heavy thump on the roof.

3. (obsolete) To call or bring back.

   Synonym: recall

   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, London: William Ponsonbie, Book 6, Canto 3, p. 392,

     So well he did his busie paines apply,

     That the faint sprite he did reuoke againe,

     To her fraile mansion of mortality.

4. (obsolete) To hold back.

   Synonyms: repress, restrain

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, London: William Ponsonbie, Book 2, Canto 2, p. 213,

     Yet she with pitthy words and counsell sad,

     Still stroue their stubborne rages to reuoke,

5. (obsolete) To move (something) back or away.

   Synonyms: draw back, withdraw

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book 3, Canto 11, p. 566,

     A flaming fire, ymixt with smouldry smoke,

     And stinking Sulphure, that with griesly hate

     And dreadfull horror did all entraunce choke,

     Enforced them their forward footing to reuoke.

6. (obsolete) To call back to mind.

   Synonyms: recollect, remember

   • late 1600s-early 1700s, Robert South, Sermon on Proverbs 18.14 in Sermons Preached on Several Occasions, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1823, p. 132,

     A man, by revoking and recollecting within himself former passages, will be still apt to inculcate these sad memoirs to his conscience.

• revocation

revoke (plural revokes)

1. The act of revoking in a game of cards.
   • 1923, William Henry Koebel, All Aboard: A Frivolous Book (page 102)

     Employ two revokes, two trumpings of your partner's best card and two ignorings of a call — all in the same hand!

2. A renege; a violation of important rules regarding the play of tricks in trick-taking card games serious enough to render the round invalid.
3. A violation ranked in seriousness somewhat below overt cheating, with the status of a more minor offense only because, when it happens, it is usually accidental.

• evoker