revoke

verb

1. (transitive)To cancel or invalidate by withdrawing or reversing.

   “Your driver's license will be revoked.”

   “I hereby revoke all former wills.”

   “1539, Myles Coverdale et al., (translators), Great Bible, London: Thomas Berthelet, 1540, deuterocanonical addition to the Book of Esther, heading to Chapter 16, The Copye of the letters of Arthaxerses, wherby he reuoketh those which he fyrst sende forth.”

   “[…] If, on the tenth day following, Thy banish’d trunk be found in our dominions, The moment is thy death. Away! By Jupiter, This shall not be revok’d.”

   “I formd them free, and free they must remain, Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change Thir nature, and revoke the high Decree Unchangeable, Eternal, which ordain’d Thir freedom,”

2. (intransitive)To fail to follow suit in a game of cards when holding a card in that suit.

   “They had just sat down at the bridge table, and Mrs Lackersteen had just revoked out of pure nervousness, when there was a heavy thump on the roof.”

3. (obsolete)To call or bring back.

   “So well he did his busie paines apply, That the faint sprite he did reuoke againe, To her fraile mansion of mortality.”

4. (obsolete)To hold back.

   “Yet she with pitthy words and counsell sad, Still stroue their stubborne rages to reuoke,”

5. (obsolete)To move (something) back or away.

   “A flaming fire, ymixt with smouldry smoke, And stinking Sulphure, that with griesly hate And dreadfull horror did all entraunce choke, Enforced them their forward footing to reuoke.”

6. (obsolete)To call back to mind.

   “late 1600s-early 1700s, Robert South, Sermon on Proverbs 18.14 in Sermons Preached on Several Occasions, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1823, p. 132, A man, by revoking and recollecting within himself former passages, will be still apt to inculcate these sad memoirs to his conscience.”

noun

1. The act of revoking in a game of cards.

   “Employ two revokes, two trumpings of your partner's best card and two ignorings of a call — all in the same hand!”

2. A renege; a violation of important rules regarding the play of tricks in trick-taking card games serious enough to render the round invalid.
3. A violation ranked in seriousness somewhat below overt cheating, with the status of a more minor offense only because, when it happens, it is usually accidental.