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abandonment

[uh-ban-duhn]

verb (used with object)

to leave completely and finally; forsake utterly; desert: to abandon one's farm; to abandon a child; to abandon a sinking ship.

to give up; discontinue; withdraw from: to abandon a research project; to abandon hopes for a stage career.

to give up the control of: to abandon a city to an enemy army.

to yield (oneself) without restraint or moderation; give (oneself) over to natural impulses, usually without self-control: to abandon oneself to grief.

Law. to cast away, leave, or desert, as property or a child.

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Insurance. to relinquish (insured property) to the underwriter in case of partial loss, thus enabling the insured to claim a total loss.

Obsolete. to banish.

COLLAPSE

Origin:
1325–75; Middle English abando(u)nen < Middle French abandoner for Old French (mettre) a bandon (put) under (someone's) jurisdiction, equivalent to a at, to (< Latin ad; see ad-) + bandon < Germanic *band; see bond¹

Related forms

a·ban·don·a·ble, adjective

a·ban·don·er, noun

a·ban·don·ment, noun

non·a·ban·don·ment, noun

un·a·ban·don·ing, adjective

Synonyms
1. See desert². 2. Abandon, relinquish, renounce mean to give up all concern in something. Abandon means to give up or discontinue any further interest in something because of discouragement, weariness, distaste, or the like: to abandon one's efforts. Relinquish implies being or feeling compelled to give up something one would prefer to keep: to relinquish a long-cherished desire. Renounce implies making (and perhaps formally stating) a voluntary decision to give something up: to renounce worldly pleasures. 3. yield, surrender, resign, waive, abdicate.

Antonyms
1. keep. 2. continue; begin, start. 3. retain.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To abandonment

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Abandonment is always a great word to know.

So is ninnyhammer. Does it mean:

a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.

a fool or simpleton; ninny.

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Example Sentences

In this slow-moving river port, signs of abandonment are everywhere.

Sure abandonment issues came up after the divorce mess, but for us far more damage was done before then.

Whether this presages an abandonment of the referendum, an election or a new national government remained unclear.

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In this slow-moving river port, signs of abandonment are everywhere.

Sure abandonment issues came up after the divorce mess, but for us far more damage was done before then.

Whether this presages an abandonment of the referendum, an election or a new national government remained unclear.

Abandonment is not feeding your child because drugs/alcohol come first.

Old-line sailors tsk-tsked about the abandonment of the traditional single-hull yacht design.

Back, the lead author of the study on abandonment at end of life.

Another step on the politicization of academia and abandonment of the scientific value of skepticism in the pursuit of knowledge.

The result was widespread failure and an abandonment of the genre in favour of reality television.

Forgiveness does not imply abandonment of consequences.

Daylight shews either abandonment or unrecognisable ruins-perhaps.

McDonald's crime, if there was one, was her temporary abandonment of musical theater for television.

ONe is the growing disrespect for and abandonment of the teaching profession:.

Hence the abandonment in the mid-1990s of public-sector reforms proposed by the then prime.

The abandonment event had the feel of a county fair.

But proximity seems to be teaching well-off cariocas that abandonment is no solution for poverty and violence.

Initially, the group focused on the difficulties owners found in insuring their homes as abandonment spread.

He taught that man's principal woe was not poverty, or war, but the abandonment of the divine.

Despite the increasing suburbanization of the area and the abandonment of farms.

The utter abandonment and neglect of the concept of the social weal.

Including victims of bigotry, poverty, abandonment and political oppression.

The goals are ill defined and our abandonment will only lead to more sectarian and political violence kenray.

Still, adoption experts said there would seem to be a strong case for criminal or civil charges of abandonment or neglect.

There has been nothing to signal a transformation in the sea of blight and abandonment that still defines much of the city.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

abandon (əˈbændən)

—vb
1.	to forsake completely; desert; leave behind: to abandon a baby; drivers had to abandon their cars
2.	abandon ship the order given to the crew of a ship that is about to sink to take to the lifeboats
3.	to give up completely: to abandon a habit; to abandon hope
4.	to yield control of or concern in; relinquish: to abandon office
5.	to give up (something begun) before completion: to abandon a job; the game was abandoned
6.	to surrender (oneself) to emotion without restraint
7.	to give (insured property that has suffered partial loss or damage) to the insurers in order that a claim for a total loss may be made

—n
8.	freedom from inhibitions, restraint, concern, or worry: she danced with abandon

[C14: abandounen (vb), from Old French, from a bandon under one's control, in one's power, from a at, to + bandon control, power]

a'bandonment

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

abandon

late 14c., "to subjugate, subdue," from O.Fr. abandoner "surrender," from à "at, to" + bandon "power, jurisdiction," in phrase mettre à bandon "to give up to a public ban," from L. bannum, "proclamation," from a Frankish word related to ban (v.). Etymologically,

EXPAND

the word carries a sense of "put someone under someone else's control." Meaning "to give up absolutely" is from late 14c. Related: Abandoned; abandoning. The noun sense of "letting loose, surrender to natural impulses" (1822) is from Fr. abandon.

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Encyclopedia Britannica

Encyclopedia

abandonment

in Anglo-American property law, the relinquishment of possession of property with an intent to terminate all ownership interests in that property. Abandonment may occur by throwing away the property, by losing it and making no attempt to retrieve it, by vacating the property with no intention of returning to it, or by any other act manifesting a complete disclaimer of ownership in the property. The general effect of abandonment is to give full ownership of the property to the first taker.

Learn more about abandonment with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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Matching Quote

"It is a secret which every intellectual man quickly learns, that, beyond the energy of his possessed and conscious intellect, he is capable of a new energy (as of an intellect doubled on itself), by abandonment to the nature of things; that, beside his privacy of power as an individual man, there is a great public power, on which he can draw, by unlocking, at all risks, his human doors, and suffering the ethereal tides to roll and circulate through him: then is he caught up into the life of the Universe, his speech is thunder, his thought is law, and his words are universally intelligible as the plants and animals."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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