To submit means to give something to someone in authority for them to review, judge, or make a decision about. When you submit your homework, you turn it in to your teacher for grading. When a writer submits a story to a magazine, she sends it to the editors hoping they'll publish it. Scientists submit their research to journals, artists submit their work to competitions, and architects submit building plans to city officials for approval.

The word carries a sense of placing something into someone else's hands. You've done your part, and now you're waiting to see what they think or decide. A student might submit a permission slip, an application, or a project proposal. The key is that you're presenting your work to someone who has the authority to evaluate or approve it.

Submit can also mean to accept someone else's authority or to stop resisting. A wrestler might submit when caught in a hold they can't escape. In this sense, the word means yielding or giving in. But in most everyday contexts, especially in school and work, submit simply means to formally present something you've completed, like when you click the “submit” button on an online form or hand your finished test to your teacher.