Other forms: remained, remains, remaining
To remain is to stay in the same place or state. Remain seated, remains to be seen, remain calm.
It is the formal counterpart of stay and it also means to be left over: four remain of the nine. The plural noun remains means what is left, including a body. It remains to be seen is the standard formula for declining to predict. Note that the Latin manere means to stay.
1verbremainTo stay in the same place or state.
“Please remain in your seats until the plane has stopped completely.”
2verbtrueTo be still true or still to happen.
“Many questions about the crash remain unanswered.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
remain is a staying.
Old French remanoir comes from Latin remanere — re plus manere, to stay. Mansion, permanent and manor come from the same staying.
Proto-Indo-European
*men- (stay)
Proto-Indo-European
*men- — to stay
Latin
remaneō
Old French
remain-
Middle English
remainen
English, today
remain
Built from
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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA