to do away with; put an end to; annul; make void: to abolish slavery.
Origin: 1425–75; late ME < MF aboliss-, long s. of abolir < L abolēre to destroy, efface, put an end to; change of conjugation perh. by assoc. with L abolitiōabolition
Related forms:
a⋅bol⋅ish⋅a⋅ble, adjective
a⋅bol⋅ish⋅er, noun
a⋅bol⋅ish⋅ment, noun
Synonyms: suppress, nullify, cancel; annihilate, obliterate, extinguish; exterminate, extirpate, eliminate. Abolish,eradicate,stamp out mean to do away completely with something. To abolish is to cause to cease, often by a summary order: to abolish a requirement. Stamp out implies forcibly making an end to something considered undesirable or harmful: to stamp out the opium traffic. Eradicate (literally, to tear out by the roots), a formal word, suggests extirpation, leaving no vestige or trace: to eradicate all use of child labor.
[Middle English abolisshen, from Old French abolir, aboliss-, from Latin abolēre; see al-2 in Indo-European roots.] a·bol'ish·a·ble adj., a·bol'ish·er n., a·bol'ish·ment n.
Synonyms: These verbs mean to get rid of: voted to abolish the tax; exterminated the cockroaches in the house; criticism that extinguished my enthusiasm; policies that attempt to extirpate drug abuse; scientists working to eradicate deadly diseases; a magnet that obliterated the data on the floppy disk.