The explanatory dictionary of T. Efremova explains the phrase as a waiver of her rights to the throne (action) or an official document about it (legal confirmation).
Sometimes historians use the legal term "abdication" (from lat. Abdicatio - "refusal"), implying a decision on the resignation of powers; refusal of a managerial position, rights to anything.
Voluntary Renunciation
History knows voluntary and forced examples of abdication.
Among the refusals of power of their own free will include the act of the 56-year-old emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Charles V, who was tired of the troubled rule, who transferred the throne to his son in several stages, and who left the monastery in 1556. In 1724, the Spanish king Philip V, who suffered from depression, also renounced in favor of his son, but was forced to return in the same year due to the death of the young ruler.
One of the most famous abdications was the act of King Edward VIII of Great Britain. The reason was an affair with twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson. As a British monarch, he was also the head of the Church of England and could not marry a divorced woman. Edward, who ascended the throne on January 20, 1936 after the death of George V, already on December 11 turned to the nation with an appeal in which he informed of the decision made and the reasons for his action. Researchers note a general discrepancy in the character of Edward to the fulfillment of royal functions and pressure from British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. The act of the king led to a constitutional crisis in Britain.
Forced failures
Rulers did not always give up their right to the throne of their own free will. The French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who lost the war, was forced to sign a renunciation in 1814 under the yoke of circumstances, when not only the Senate, but also the army refused it. Under the Fontainebleau Treaty, he took possession of the small island of Elba in the Mediterranean Sea, where he died in 1821.
The Austrian Emperor Ferdinand I abdicated as a result of the 1848 revolution. After signing the act, he went to live in his own estate, where he was engaged in agriculture.
In the history of Russia
The abandonment of the right to the throne of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II, which was the result of the February Revolution of 1917, is a topic of ongoing discussions and debates. March 2, 1917 (date of abdication) is the day of the death of the Russian monarchy.
Mild in character, indecisive Nicholas II by 1917 was left without the support of the people, the bourgeoisie, and even the army. Under pressure from the Chairman of the State Duma, Mikhail Rodzianko, the emperor himself wrote the text of the abdication, in which he renounced the right to the throne on his behalf and on behalf of his son Alexei in favor of his brother, Grand Duke Mikhail. The latter, in turn, signed the same document immediately after Nicholas.
All army and navy commanders, with the exception of Admiral Kolchak, sent telegrams in which they approved the decision of the monarch. After 16 months, the imperial family was shot.
Summarize. Abdication is a voluntary or involuntary act of renouncing the right to the throne due to the inability to continue to exercise the functions of state administration by the monarch.