abandonment

American  

[uh-ban-duhn-muhnt] / əˈbæn dən mənt /

noun

1. an act or instance of leaving a person or thing permanently and completely.

   He struggles to deal with his abandonment by his wife, and now having to care for their infant alone.

2. an act or instance of permanently setting aside a principle, discontinuing an activity, etc..

   I believe in the struggle for radical social change, but it must be accompanied by an abandonment of the notion that the end justifies the means.

3. an act or instance of giving up control of something, or of yielding to one’s impulses or to an external or spiritual force.

   No psychiatric diagnosis quite captures Hitler’s boundless will to lead, his self-deception, and his utter abandonment to evil.

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Other Word Forms

• nonabandonment
  noun

Etymology

Origin of abandonment

abandon ( def. ) + -ment ( def. )

Explanation

Abandonment is the act of getting rid of something. It’s how dogs become stray and children become orphaned. If abandonment is your greatest fear in life, make sure to surround yourself with loyal friends and treat them kindly. Abandonment, a noun meaning "relinquishment," stems from the French abandonnement and was first recorded in the early 17th century. "Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are battlefields which have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious heroes," said Victor Hugo. He treats a person's survival of abandonment with the utmost respect, perhaps more than that accorded survival of war or other more obvious trials.

Example Sentences

Abandonment of a firm is rare, but the SRA does sometimes have to step in to deal with closures, known as intervention.

From BBC • Feb. 4, 2026

Abandonment had a sound — engine noise fading into Ventura Boulevard traffic.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 30, 2026

Abandonment was so common that there was an actual phrase for the process — “to turn off,” as in, “When Alexander McKay retired, he ‘turned off’ Marguerite.”

From New York Times • Feb. 16, 2022

Abandonment issues, the young man has a bunch.

From Seattle Times • Jun. 12, 2019

Abandonment has opened the door to the dark and ugly basement where the monsters have been waiting.

From "A Heart in a Body in the World" by Deb Caletti

Related Words

• renunciation