Late sixteenth-century, posthumous portrait of Stephen Gardiner, the first person known to have used resile in English
1 December 2021
Resile is a verb that is rarely used in the United States, but it can be found in other English-speaking countries, usually in political or legal contexts. It is a borrowing from the Latin resilire, which in classical Latin means to literally jump back, withdraw, or recoil. But in medieval Latin, the verb was also used metaphorically to mean to repudiate. English use was also undoubtedly influenced by the Middle French resiler, which appears about the same time.
Resile’s first known use is in a 1529 letter from Stephen Gardiner, an English politician instrumental in obtaining Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon, to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York and Lord High Chancellor of England. In the letter, Gardiner says that the queen should not be allowed to go back on what she had previously agreed to in the annulment settlement:
Trusting that Your Grace hath in all circumstances soe pro[ceeded], as if the Quene wold herafter resile and goo b[ack from] that, she semeth nowe to be contented with, it should [not be] in her power soo to doo.
The annulment of the marriage would take several more years and a break from the Roman Catholic Church to complete.
Why the word is largely absent from the US vocabulary but found in most other English-speaking countries is unknown. Given that it is usually found in political or legal contexts, it may be due to its use in the Westminster parliamentary system for such actions as the withdrawal of motions and bills. The British political vocabulary would transfer to other countries that use the system, while the United States, with an entirely different constitutional system, would be more resistant to adopting such terms.
Sources:
Davies, Mark. Corpus of News on the Web (NOW).
Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, Oxford University Press, 2013, s.v. resilire. Brepols: Database of Latin Dictionaries.
Letter Gardyner to Wolsey (September 1529). State Papers: King Henry the Eighth, vol. 1 of 6. London: His Majesty’s Commission for State Papers, 1830, 343. HathiTrust Digital Archive. London, British Library, Cotton MS Vitellius B.xii.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2010, modified June 2021, s.v. resile, v.
Image credit: Unknown artist, 1570–99. UK National Trust. Public domain image.