共和党候选人克鲁兹“退选”

Republican US presidential candidate Ted Cruz announces that he is dropping out of the 2016 race for the Republican presidential nomination as his wife Heidi looks on at his Indiana primary night rally in Indianapolis, Indiana, US, May 3, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

我们来看看外媒都是怎么报道这件事的：

AP

Cruz exits Republican race for president

Ted Cruz ends his bid for Republican presidential nomination

TIME

Ted Cruz Drops Out of Republican Race After Indiana Loss

CNBC

Ted Cruz suspends presidential campaign

Washington Post

Cruz quits race; Trump win in Indiana puts him in sight of nomination

Reuters

Ted Cruz drops out of Republican White House race

BBC

Ted Cruz pulls out of Republican race

The Guardian

Ted Cruz suspends campaign, clearing path for Trump to get nomination

从上面的报道标题引述中，我们可以看到，关于“退出竞选”在英文中的表述有：exit race, end bid for nomination, drop out of race, suspend campaign, quit race, 以及pull out of race等。

【详解】

Exit既能做动词也能做名词，大家对于这个词最熟悉的大概就是机场、车站以及建筑物里的各类“出口”了，除了“退场、离开”，exit还可以表示“退出(计算机)程序”，比如：I can open other applications without having to exit WordPerfect.(我不必退出WordPerfect程序就可以打开其他应用程序。)

End最常用，表示“结尾，尾声，结束”，比如：It is wise of you to end this relationship.(你结束这段恋情是很明智的决定。)

Drop out of这个短语最常见的搭配是drop out of school，也就是“退学、辍学”的意思，一般都是主动做出的决定。比如：Research suggests that children whose parents split up are more likely to drop out of high school.(研究表明，父母离异的孩子更容易从中学中途退学。)中途退学的人就叫dropout。

Suspend这个词在这里用得比较巧妙，因为这个词表示的是“stop something for a while”，也就是“暂停”的意思，《卫报》和CNBC用suspend campaign，难道是觉得Ted Cruz四年后还有可能再战?

Quit多指“放弃、停止做某件事”，比如，说到“戒烟、戒酒”我们都会用quit smoking/drinking来表示，还有另一个常见的情形就是quit one's job(辞职)。老板对你太苛刻，你一拍桌子说“I quit”，也是可以的。嗯，这句是开玩笑的。

Pull out of多指“撤出、取消”，比如，之前奥巴马决定从阿富汗撤军用的就是US troops pull out of Afghanistan，这个动作的名词形式为pullout。