abandon

present singular third person abandons · participle present abandoning · participle past abandoned · past abandoned · first person past singular abandoned · archaic present second person singular abandonest · past second person singular abandoned · archaic past second person singular abandonedst · present singular third person abandons · archaic present singular third person abandoneth · past singular third person abandoned · past plural abandoned · past subjunctive abandoned · participle present abandoning · participle past abandoned

1. transitiveTo give up or relinquish control of, to surrender or to give oneself over, or to yield to one's emotions.First known use First attested from around (1350 to 1470)

   […] he abandoned himself […] to his favourite vice.

   1856, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James II. Volume 3, page 312

2. transitiveTo desist in doing, practicing, following, holding, or adhering to; to turn away from; to permit to lapse; to renounce; to discontinue.First known use First attested from around (1350 to 1470)

   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.

   2013 May 17, George Monbiot, “Money just makes the rich suffer”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 23, page 19

3. transitiveTo 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 known use First attested in the late 15ᵗʰ century.

   She abandoned her husband for a new man.

   3 more examples

   Many baby girls have been abandoned on the streets of Beijing.

   He was abandoned on the island with no one to help him.

   Hope was overthrown, and yet could not be abandoned.

   1832, Isaac Taylor, Saturday Evening, page 3

4. obsoletetransitiveTo subdue; to take control of.First known use Attested from around (1350 to 1470) until the mid 16ᵗʰ century.
5. obsoletetransitiveTo cast out; to banish; to expel; to reject.First known use Attested from the mid 16ᵗʰ century until the mid 17ᵗʰ century.

   Being all this time abandoned from your bed.

   1594, William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, act I, scene ii

6. transitiveTo no longer exercise a right, title, or interest, especially with no interest of reclaiming it again; to yield; to relinquish.First known use First attested in the mid 18ᵗʰ century.

   I hereby abandon my position as manager.

7. transitiveTo surrender to the insurer (an insured item), so as to claim a total loss.

plural abandons

1. countableuncountableA yielding to natural impulses or inhibitions; freedom from artificial constraint, with loss of appreciation of consequences. (Now especially in the phrase with abandon.)First known use Early 19th century.

   with gay abandon, with wild abandon, with reckless abandon

   4 more examples

   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.

   1846, The New Monthly Magazine and Universal Register, page 453

   I envy those chroniclers who assert with reckless but sincere abandon: 'I was there. I saw it happen. It happened thus.'

   1954, Gore Vidal, Messiah

   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.

   2007 November 4, David M. Halbfinger, “The City That Never Sleeps, Comatose”, in The New York Times

   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.

   2026 April 1, Vitali Vitaliev, “Literature on the track”, in RAIL, number 1058, page 68

   Synonyms: wantonness, unrestraint, libertinism, abandonment, profligacy, unconstraint

2. countableobsoleteuncountableAbandonment; relinquishment.