I'm not satisfied with any of the suggestions for the antonym of revoke as given in http://thesaurus.com/browse/revoke.
None of the suggestions capture the meaning of "re-approving something that initially taken away due to infraction."
I am working on a web application where I have administrators revoke a user's privilege, and I use the word revoke to disable certain activities the user used to be able to perform.
When I want to give back the privilege, what word should I use? Grant? That seems like I'm giving the privilege in the first place. Reinstate? So far, this seems to be the best word, but I'm not sure if it's appropriate. Restore? I'm not sure if this word is specific enough.
Best Answer
Reinstate is the most idiomatic term, in my opinion (for AE). It conveys both that access is being granted now and that it was revoked in the past.