119. Resign and Re-sign.

Resign and re-sign are sometimes confused with each other. Let’s look closer at these two words.

Resign sounds like rezine – the s has a z sound.
Resign means to voluntarily leave a job or an elected position before your time is up.
The mayor has announced he will resign his position, effective July 1.
Bob plans to resign from his job when he moves to Hawaii next month.

Resign can also mean to accept a situation as it is when you have no power to change it.
You must resign yourself to the fact that you will never be tall enough to dunk the basketball.
I am resigned to the fact that I will never live on a farm.

Re-sign has a hyphen in it – that little dash line. In re-sign, you say the s sound.
Sign means to put your signature on a piece of paper. I will sign the document giving you ownership of the house.

The prefix re- means to do something again, so re-sign means to sign the paper again.
You need to re-sign the deed of ownership.
Please re-sign this document.

Try to remember that re-sign means to do it again – to sign something a second time. Then you can know that the other word – resign – means to step down from the job or position that you were in.

  • It’s your turn. Write a sentence about something that you have to sign a second time. Use the word re-sign . Then write a sentence where you resign from a job that you don’t want anymore. Do you see how easy it is to use these two words?