To resume means to continue after a break: The match resumed after the rain. That's where the Resume button in games and video players comes from. In American English, a CV for a job is also a résumé, but the stress is different: the verb sounds like ri-ZYOOM, and the noun like REZ-yoo-may. In British English that document is a CV. A short account of a text's main points is a summary, even though a similar word in some languages, such as French résumé, means exactly that.
resume: will you get the meaning right?
Write a sentence — we'll check that the word fits the meaning and explain any mistakes.
The check is taking longer than usual. Your feedback will appear here automatically.
resume + noun/-ing (resume work, resume talking); something resumes; résumé (AmE) = CV (BrE)
- The match resumed after a twenty-minute break for heavy rain.
- I'll resume work on the report after lunch.
- She sent her résumé to five companies in New York last week.
What changed
First versionWrite a short resume of the article for Monday's class.
RevisionWrite a short summary of the article for Monday's class.
Resume can look like the word for a short version of an article, but in English resume is a verb meaning “continue”, and in American English résumé is a CV. A short retelling of a text is a summary.
Don't mix up resume and renew: both seem to mean “start again”. Renew means to extend how long something is valid or replace it with a new one: renew a passport, renew a contract. Resume means to continue what was interrupted: resume talks, resume work.
Your turn
The meeting will ___ after a fifteen-minute coffee break.
Show the answer
resume — The meeting stops for coffee and then continues, which is resume. Renew means to extend something's validity, like a passport or a subscription, and doesn't fit a meeting.
Describe something you had to stop doing for a while. Say what got in the way and when you went back to it.
I stopped my guitar lessons when I moved to a new flat, but I resumed them in March after I found a teacher nearby.
Learn to use new words without mistakes
Write phrases with the words you are learning. LetsWords shows mistakes in usage and grammar, suggests corrections and explains them, and review helps the words stick.