resile

English

WOTD – 3 May 2009

From Middle French resiler (compare French résilier), from Latin resiliō (“spring back”), from re (back) + saliō (“I jump”).

resile (third-person singular simple present resiles, present participle resiling, simple past and past participle resiled)

To start back; to recoil; to recede from a purpose.
I once described this rather vulgarly as a Euro-wanking make-work project and I do not resile from that.[1]
- 2007, David Pollard et al., Constitutional and Administrative Law: Text with Materials, →ISBN, page 594:
  If a legitimate expectation is established, it must be unfair for the public authority to resile from giving effect to that expectation, unless the wider interests of the public require that the public authority resiles in order properly to protect those wider interests.
To spring back; rebound; resume the original form or position, as an elastic body.

to start back; recoil

to spring back; rebound