remain

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
8
Words With Friends
10
Letters
6
Pronunciation
/ɹɪˈmeɪn/

Definition of remain

9 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. (in-plural)That which is left; relic; remainder.
See all 9 definitions

noun

  1. (in-plural)That which is left; relic; remainder.
  2. (in-plural)That which is left of a human being after the life is gone; relics; a dead body.
  3. Posthumous works or productions, especially literary works.
  4. (obsolete)State of remaining; stay.

verb

  1. To stay after others or other parts have been removed or otherwise disappeared.
    “After three rounds of interviews, only 5 candidates remained.”
    “I like to make more than enough food if I have people round for dinner, so I can eat my way through what remains in the following days.”
    “Gather up the fragments that remain.”
    “SEM of the apopyles with apopylar cells and choanocyte chamber remaining on the wound surface.”
  2. To be left after a number or quantity has been subtracted or cut off; to be left as not included or comprised.
    “If you divide 20 apples between three people, each gets six and two remain.”
  3. To continue unchanged in place, form, or condition, or undiminished in quantity; to abide; to stay; to endure; to last.
    “Promise me you will always remain my good little girl.”
    “Remain a widow at thy father's house.”
    “, Book I That […] remains to be proved.”
    “We made an odd party before the arrival of the Ten, particularly when the Celebrity dropped in for lunch or dinner. He could not be induced to remain permanently at Mohair because Miss Trevor was at Asquith, but he appropriated a Hempstead cart from the Mohair stables and made the trip sometimes twice in a day.”
    “But beyond these cut-offs, to avoid the wholesale alteration of all mileposting and mileages—of bridges and culverts, for example—the original mileposts have remained unaltered.”
  4. To await; to be left to.
  5. (copulative)To continue in a state of being.
    “There was no food in the house, so I had to remain hungry.”
    “The light remained red for two full minutes.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

From Middle English remainen, from Old French remain-, stressed stem of remanoir, from Latin remaneō, maneō, from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“to stay”). Displaced native Middle English beliven, bliven (“to remain”) (from Old English belīfan (“to remain, stay”)) due to confluence with related Middle English beleven (“to leave behind”), with which it merged. More at beleave and belive.

Hooks

1 extension · 1 back

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