abolition
Americannoun
-
the act of abolishing or the state of being abolished: the abolition of capital punishment;
the abolition of war;
the abolition of capital punishment;
the abolition of unfair taxes.
- Synonyms:
- repeal, revocation, invalidation, nullification, elimination, eradication, annihilation
- Antonyms:
- establishment
-
the legal prohibition of slavery, especially the institutional enslavement of Black people in the U.S.
noun
-
the act of abolishing or the state of being abolished; annulment
-
(often capital) (in British territories) the ending of the slave trade (1807) or the ending of slavery (1833): accomplished after a long campaign led by William Wilberforce
-
(often capital) (in the US) the emancipation of the slaves, accomplished by the Emancipation Proclamation issued in 1863 and ratified in 1865
Other Word Forms
- abolitionary adjective
- abolitionism noun
- abolitionist noun
- nonabolition noun
- proabolition adjective
Etymology
Origin of abolition
First recorded in 1520–30; from Latin abolitiōn- (stem of abolitiō ), equivalent to abolit(us) “effaced, destroyed,” past participle of abolēre “to destroy, efface” + -iōn- noun suffix; abolish, -ion
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“It means somebody who wants to...abolition something.”
From Literature
She said following the abolition of the not proven verdict in the Scottish legal system the jury was one of the first to return a verdict under the changed system.
From BBC
Had California remained part of Mexico, it would have been in this larger, earlier wave of abolition, rather than seeing the continuation or return of enslavement.
From Los Angeles Times
Joe and Kate did not initially understand what the jury's verdict meant – and have now spent more than three decades campaigning for the abolition of not proven.
From BBC
The law requires that committee to review designs, and after a multiyear effort, it settled on five themes for the five quarters: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, abolition, suffrage and civil rights.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
