abort
- to bring forth a fetus from the uterus before the fetus is viable; miscarry.
- to develop incompletely; remain in a rudimentary or undeveloped state.
- to fail, cease, or stop at an early or premature stage.
- Military. to fail to accomplish a purpose or mission for any reason other than enemy action.
- Rocketry. (of a missile) to stop before the scheduled flight is completed.
- to cause to bring forth (a fetus) from the uterus before the fetus is viable.
- to cause (a pregnant female) to be delivered of a nonviable fetus.
- to cause to cease or end at an early or premature stage: We aborted our vacation when the car broke down.
- to terminate (a missile flight, mission, etc.) before completion.
- to put down or quell in the early stages: Troops aborted the uprising.
- a missile, rocket, etc., that has aborted.
Origin of abort
Related Words for abort
scrub, halt, scrap, terminate, nullify, interrupt, miscarry, end, scratch, drop, arrest, fail, checkExamples from the Web for abort
Contemporary Examples of abort
Ellen makes her choice, and she throws herself down the stairs to abort the baby.
They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton.
Well, Sarah Palin is travelling across the country alerting people that “angry atheists” want to “abort Christ from Christmas.”
All of a sudden, Mission Control (voiced by Ed Harris, paying homage to Apollo 13) orders the team to abort immediately.
Alfonso Cuarón On His Spellbinding Sci-Fi Film ‘Gravity,’ Starring Sandra Bullock and George ClooneyMarlow Stern
September 1, 2013
Stand with the pink-sneakered Texas legislator and her fight to allow mothers to abort babies past the 20th week of pregnancy?
Historical Examples of abort
Abort the middle there was au arm-hole with a shutter or flap over it.
The Malay ArchipelagoAlfred Russell Wallace
And if I am to endure it much longer, I shall have to abort.
It was on that train I learned my first German word "abort" meaning bathroom.
The Biography of a RabbitRoy Benson
"I thought we'd abort this mission before we were through," he sneered.
The Trouble with TelstarJohn Berryman
I've tried my best to abort this big bug, but I can't find anything amiss.
Tight SqueezeDean Charles Ing
abort
- to undergo or cause (a woman) to undergo the termination of pregnancy before the fetus is viable
- (tr) to cause (a fetus) to be expelled from the womb before it is viable
- (intr) to fail to come to completion; go wrong
- (tr) to stop the development of; cause to be abandoned
- (intr) to give birth to a dead or nonviable fetus
- (of a space flight, military operation, etc) to fail or terminate prematurely
- (intr) (of an organism or part of an organism) to fail to develop into the mature form
- the premature termination or failure of (a space flight, military operation, etc)
Word Origin for abort
Word Origin and History for abort
1570s, "to miscarry," from Latin abortus, past participle of aboriri "to miscarry" (see abortive); 1610s as "to deliberately terminate" anything, but especially a pregnancy, which seems to be the literal sense. Transitive meaning "to cause a woman to miscarry" is recorded from 1933. Related: Aborted; aborting.
abort
(ə-bôrt′)- To expel or cause to expel an embryo or fetus before it is viable.
- To arrest a disease in its earliest stages.
- To arrest in growth or development; to cause to remain rudimentary.