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

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Etymology

Origin of abandonment

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

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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

See Examples For:

abandonment

In his trading note dispatched to clients Wednesday, Privorotsky acknowledges that the delay or abandonment of some data centers could slow down what is labelled by investors the picks-and-shovels trade.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 4, 2026

There it unfolds—with graceful and terrible inevitability—into a mosaic of abandonment and love, fanaticism and terror.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026

Dürrenmatt penned “The Visit” as a critique of Switzerland’s neutrality after World War II, which he saw as an abandonment of ethics driven by capitalism.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026

Still, the abandonment caused some fans to express their displeasure with messages to the BBC's live coverage of the Test.

From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026

However, Haymitch’s house, despite the care taken by the groundskeeper, exudes an air of abandonment and neglect.

From "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins

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Related Words

• renunciation

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