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desist

UK/dɪˈsɪst/US/dɪˈsɪst/
verbC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,421 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: desisted

To desist is to stop doing something. Desist from it, cease and desist, desist immediately.

It is formal and legal, and it appears in ordinary life almost only in cease and desist, the American phrase for a letter demanding that somebody stop — the doubling is a legal habit of pairing an English word with a French or Latin one. It takes from. Note that desist comes from the Latin for standing away, the same sistere as in resist, insist and consist.

Definitions of desist

  1. 1verbdesistTo stop doing something.C1

    “The judge ordered the company to desist from selling the fake products.”

desist is a stopping.

Where it comes from

Latin desistere is de- plus sistere, to stand or stop. Resist, insist, consist and assist come from the same standing.

  1. Middle French

    desister

  2. English, today

    desist

Borrowed from Middle French desister. Middle French desister, from Latin dēsistō, from dē- + sistō (whence de-).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

desist in the wild

  • An alternative writ directs the recipient to immediately act, or desist, and "show cause" why the directive should not be made permanent.

    Writ of prohibition

  • A cease and desist letter issued by a government entity, called a cease and desist order, is "a warning of impending judicial enforcement".

    Cease and desist

  • Shortly after release, Counts received a cease and desist order from EMI's attorneys around September 8, 2006.

    Sgt. Petsound's Lonely Hearts Club Band

  • Counts linked to the tracker site isoHunt as a place to still download the album after his cease and desist letter.

    Sgt. Petsound's Lonely Hearts Club Band

  • On 1 February 366, he was instructed, through the notary Brasidas, to desist and allow Athanasius to return.

    Flavianus (prefect of Egypt)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.