Desistance

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act or state of desisting; cessation. countable, rare, uncountable

    "If the writings now sent be seriously perused concerning the common defence, besieging of Bantam, their desistance from the trade of Moluccas, Amboyna, and Banda, their complaints against Declell, and answers to the writings of the Dutch, are confident that the advantage will not appear so great."

Example

More examples

"If the writings now sent be seriously perused concerning the common defence, besieging of Bantam, their desistance from the trade of Moluccas, Amboyna, and Banda, their complaints against Declell, and answers to the writings of the Dutch, are confident that the advantage will not appear so great."

Etymology

From desist + -ance.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.