release

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• transitive verb To set free from confinement or bondage.
• transitive verb To set free from physical restraint or binding; let go.
• transitive verb To cause or allow to move away or spread from a source or place of confinement.
• transitive verb To make available for use.
• transitive verb To set free from obligations, commitments, or debt.
• transitive verb To relieve of care or suffering.
• transitive verb To issue for performance, sale, publication, or distribution.
• transitive verb To make known or available.
• transitive verb Law To surrender (a right, claim, or title).
• noun Deliverance or liberation, as from confinement.
• noun Discharge from an obligation or commitment.
• noun Relief from suffering or care.
• noun An unfastening or letting go, as of something caught or held fast.
• noun Sports The action of throwing a ball or propelling a puck.
• noun Linguistics The movement of a vocal organ or organs so as to end the closure of a stop consonant.
• noun A device or catch for locking or releasing a mechanism.
• noun The act or an instance of issuing something for publication, use, or distribution.
• noun Something thus issued.
• noun The condition of being available, in use, or in publication.
• noun The surrender of a right, title, or claim, especially to one against whom the right, title, or claim would be enforced or exercised.
• noun The document attesting to such surrender.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To lease again or anew.
• noun See combination button.
• To let loose; set free from restraint or confmement; liberate, as from prison, confinement, or servitude.
• To free from pain, care, trouble, grief, or any other evil.
• To free from obligation or penalty: as, to release one from debt, or from a promise or covenant.
• To forgive.
• To quit; let go, as a legal claim; remit; surrender or relinquish: as, to release a debt, or to release a right to lands or tenements by conveying to another already having some right or estate in possession.
• To relax.
• To let slip; let go; give up.
• To take out of pawn. Nabbes, The Bride (4 to, 1640), sig. F. iv.
• noun Liberation or discharge from restraint of any kind, as from confinement or bondage.
• noun Liberation from care, pain, or any burden.
• noun Discharge from obligation or responsibility, as from debt, tax, penalty, or claim of any kind; acquittance.
• noun In law, a surrender of a right; a remission of a claim in such form as to estop the grantor from asserting it. again.
• noun In a steam-engine, the opening of the exhaust-port before the stroke is finished, to lessen the back-pressure.
• noun In archery, the act of letting go the bowstring in shooting; the mode of performing this act, which differs among different peoples.
• noun =Syn. 1–3. Deliverance, excuse, exemption, exoneration, absolution, clearance. See the verb.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb To lease again; to grant a new lease of; to let back.
• noun The act of letting loose or freeing, or the state of being let loose or freed; liberation or discharge from restraint of any kind, as from confinement or bondage.
• noun Relief from care, pain, or any burden.
• noun Discharge from obligation or responsibility, as from debt, penalty, or claim of any kind; acquittance.
• noun (Law) A giving up or relinquishment of some right or claim; a conveyance of a man's right in lands or tenements to another who has some estate in possession; a quitclaim.