abandon - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Middle English abandounen, from Old French abandoner, formed from a (“at, to”) + bandon (“jurisdiction, control”),[1] from Late Latin bannum (“proclamation”), bannus,[2] bandum, from Frankish *ban, *bann, from Proto-Germanic *bannaną (“to proclaim, command”) (whence English ban), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- (“to speak”). See also ban, banal.

Displaced Middle English forleten (“to abandon”), from Old English forlǣtan, anforlǣtan; see forlet; and Middle English forleven (“to leave behind, abandon”), from Old English forlǣfan; see forleave.

abandon (third-person singular simple present abandons, present participle abandoning, simple past and past participle abandoned)

  1. (transitive) To give up or relinquish control of, to surrender or to give oneself over, or to yield to one's emotions. [First attested from around (1350 to 1470)][1]
    • 1856, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James II. Volume 3, page 312:
      […] he abandoned himself […] to his favourite vice.
  2. (transitive) To desist in doing, practicing, following, holding, or adhering to; to turn away from; to permit to lapse; to renounce; to discontinue. [First attested from around (1350 to 1470)][1]
    • 2013 May 17, George Monbiot, “Money just makes the rich suffer”, in The Guardian Weekly‎[2], volume 188, number 23, page 19:
      In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. […] The public realm is privatised, the regulations restraining the ultra–wealthy and the companies they control are abandoned, and Edwardian levels of inequality are almost fetishised.
    • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:abandon.
  3. (transitive) To leave behind; to desert, as in a ship, a position, or a person, typically in response to overwhelming odds or impending dangers; to forsake, in spite of a duty or responsibility. [First attested in the late 15th century.][1]
    Many baby girls have been abandoned on the streets of Beijing.
    He was abandoned on the island with no one to help him.
    She abandoned her husband for a new man.
  4. (transitive, obsolete) To subdue; to take control of. [Attested from around (1350 to 1470) until the mid 16th century.][1]
  5. (transitive, obsolete) To cast out; to banish; to expel; to reject. [Attested from the mid 16th century until the mid 17th century.][1]
  6. (transitive) To no longer exercise a right, title, or interest, especially with no interest of reclaiming it again; to yield; to relinquish. [First attested in the mid 18th century.][1]
    I hereby abandon my position as manager.
  7. (transitive) To surrender to the insurer (an insured item), so as to claim a total loss.

to give up control of, surrender

to desist in doing, practicing or practising, following, holding, or adhering to

to leave behind or desert; to forsake

to cast out, expel, reject

to no longer exercise a right, relinquish a claim to property

to surrender to the insurer

Translations to be checked

From Middle English abandoun, from Old French abandon, from Old French abondonner.

abandon (countable and uncountable, plural abandons)

  1. A yielding to natural impulses or inhibitions; freedom from artificial constraint, with loss of appreciation of consequences. [Early 19th century.][1][3] (Now especially in the phrase with abandon.)
    Synonyms: wantonness, unrestraint, libertinism, abandonment, profligacy, unconstraint
    with gay abandon, with wild abandon, with reckless abandon
    • 1846, The New Monthly Magazine and Universal Register, page 453:
      The Italian painters have an abandon in their chiar' oscuro which mellows up their flesh tints in a way that no other school can imitate : the frigidity of their outline is another remarkable feature, and the harmony of their impasto is unique.
    • 1954, Gore Vidal, Messiah:
      I envy those chroniclers who assert with reckless but sincere abandon: 'I was there. I saw it happen. It happened thus.'
    • 2007 November 4, David M. Halbfinger, “The City That Never Sleeps, Comatose”, in The New York Times‎[4]:
      They needed to have an abandon in their performance that you just can’t get out of people in the middle of the night when they’re barefoot.
    • 2026 April 1, Vitali Vitaliev, “Literature on the track”, in RAIL, number 1058, page 68:
      My dreams were largely based on the works of Dickens (his Mugby Junction stories), Thackeray (Jeames on the Gauge Question), and Arthur Conan Doyle, whose Sherlock Holmes stories I kept devouring with gluttonous abandon.
    • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:abandon.
  2. (obsolete) Abandonment; relinquishment.

a giving up to natural impulses

Translations to be checked

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Lesley Brown, editor-in-chief, William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, editors (2002), “abandon”, in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 5th edition, Oxford; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 2.
  2. ^ Christine A. Lindberg, editor (2002), “abandon”, in The Oxford College Dictionary, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Spark Publishing, →ISBN, page 1.
  3. ^ Elliott K. Dobbie, C. William Dunmore, Robert K. Barnhart, et al. (editors), Chambers Dictionary of Etymology (Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2004 [1998], →ISBN), page 2.

From Old French (mettre) a bandon (“to deliver”, literally “to place in someone's power”). Gamillscheg suggests a derivation from Old French a ban donner, but the Trésor de la langue française considers this unlikely, as the phrase is not attested.

abandon m (plural abandons)

  1. surrender; desertion; withdrawal
    abandon scolaire ― the action of dropping out of school
    abandon de poste ― desertion of one's post
  2. abandonment, abandoning
    faire l'abandon de quelque chose ― to give something up
    tour d'abandon ― foundling wheel
  3. state of neglect
    être à l'abandon ― to be in a state of complete neglect
    laisser à l'abandon ― to abandon; to allo to fall into decay;
  4. (literary) abandon, unrestraint (yielding to natural impulses or inhibitions; freedom from artificial constraint)

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

abandon m (plural abandons)

  1. abandonment

From Old French abandon.

abandon (not comparable)

  1. Freely; entirely.
    • 1330, Arthour and Merlin:
      His ribbes and scholder fel adoun / Men might se the liver abandoun.
      His ribs and shoulder fell down / Men might see the liver entirely.

From French abandon (“surrender, abandonment”), from Old French mettre a bandon (“to deliver, place at someone's disposition”), last part from Frankish *ban, *bann, from Proto-Germanic *bannaną (“to proclaim, command, summon, ban”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- (“to speak, say”).

abandon m (definite singular abandonen, indefinite plural abandoner, definite plural abandonene)

  1. (law) the right to, under certain circumstances, waive ownership of an insured ship or cargo to the insurer and claim compensation for total loss
  2. (obsolete) indifference
    • 1917, Ludvig Daae, Paul Botten Hansen, page 64:
      [Botten Hansen] skrev med saa stor abandon, at mere end een troskyldig læser indigneredes paa hans vegne
      [Botten Hansen] wrote with such great abandon that more than one innocent reader was indignant on his behalf
    • 1992, Olaf Bull, Ild og skygger, page 101:
      den evige varme pludringen hos denne damen, med intelligente smaa «abandoner» i tanken, denne uendelige «bjerg- og dalbane» i tanken
      the eternal hot chatter of this lady, with intelligent little "abandons" in the tank, this endless "roller coaster" in the tank

Borrowed from French abandon.[1][2] First attested in 1830.[3]

abandon m inan

  1. (law, nautical) legal waiving of rights to one's ship that has lost trade value (Is there an English equivalent to this definition?)
    zgłoszenie abandonu ― registration of abandonment of one's ship
  1. ^ Mirosław Bańko; Lidia Wiśniakowska (2021), “abandon”, in Wielki słownik wyrazów obcych, →ISBN
  2. ^ Witold Doroszewski, editor (1958–1969), “abandon”, in Słownik języka polskiego (in Polish), Warszawa: PWN
  3. ^ Tygodnik Petersburski‎[1], number cz.2, nr 31, 1830, page 252

Borrowed from French abandon.

abandon n (plural abandonuri)

  1. abandonment
  2. renouncement