forsake
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to quit or leave entirely; abandon; desert.
She has forsaken her country for an island in the South Pacific.
-
to give up or renounce (a habit, way of life, etc.).
- Synonyms:
- forgo, relinquish, forswear
verb
-
to abandon
-
to give up (something valued or enjoyed)
Synonym Usage
See desert 2.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
forsakesimple
-
forsakessimple
-
have forsakenperfect
-
has forsakenperfect
-
am forsakingprogressive
-
are forsakingprogressive
-
is forsakingprogressive
-
have been forsakingperfect progressive
-
has been forsakingperfect progressive
Past
-
forsooksimple
-
had forsakenperfect
-
was forsakingprogressive
-
were forsakingprogressive
-
had been forsakingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of forsake
First recorded before 900; Middle English forsaken “to deny, reject,” Old English forsacan, equivalent to for- prefix meaning “away, off” + sacan “to dispute”; see for-
Explanation
To forsake another person is to leave them entirely, usually in a moment of need. Forsake may mean simply giving something up, such as a way of life or a homeland, for something better or more appropriate. But it is often a mean word, suggesting leaving something or someone behind when they need you to stay. One way to remember the meaning of this verb — to abandon or desert — is to remember this little sentence: "For heaven's sake, don't leave me, or heaven is lost!" Lose the heaven, and you have forsake.
Vocabulary lists containing forsake
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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.
See Examples For:
Even after its massive expenditures, Microsoft recently said its cloud-computing capacity was so constrained that it had to forsake external cloud sales to run its own operations.
From Barron's ● May 29, 2026
I can’t be the only 57-year-old who would forsake both for six uninterrupted hours.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2025
Adult men should survive without requiring women to forsake our own goals and desires in order to serve them.
From Salon ● Jan. 3, 2024
“We will not. … San Francisco, beautiful San Francisco, though others forsake you, we will always be your friend.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2023
Peace then seemed to forsake our hut and I could hear my husband and children moving restlessly in their sleep and muttering, whether from hunger or fear I do not know.
From "Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya
It had a touch of sonic algae, all the better to hide the gold that glimmers in it and from which a ring can be fashioned with supernatural powers to anyone who forsakes love.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 27, 2024
In pursuit of his mad crush, the hypermasculine Hudson, Randy now forsakes his beloved campy theater friends, cutting his hair and taking up sports as the buff, tough Dell.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 10, 2022
In the process, Serse forsakes his betrothed, Amastre, who spends much of the opera fulminating while dressed as a man.
From New York Times ● May 9, 2022
Director X’s “Superfly” transplants the 1972 Blaxploitation classic from Harlem streets to suburban Atlanta mansions, flips Curtis Mayfield’s soul score for Future’s hip-hop soundtrack and forsakes the original’s politically charged grit for shallow music-video indulgence.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 12, 2018
There was a dignity to her grief and an acceptance of the fait accompli—the fatalism that the pilot’s wife must beget whenever her mate forsakes her for his aircraft.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
Hook frequently forsook food for the cat poop he always seemed to find on our lawn and in our backyard.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
As a young college graduate, Mr. Whitworth forsook a promising career as a jazz trumpeter to do a different kind of improvisation as a journalist.
From New York Times ● Mar. 9, 2024
Later, he forsook arts cinema to become a highly bankable commercial actor, as at home in comedy as in drama.
From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2021
“American spray paint companies basically forsook graffiti in the ’90s,” she said.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 22, 2020
And for thee I hungered and forsook my bed.
From "Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village" by Laura Amy Schlitz
Anguished and alone, Nick is similarly cast away, seemingly cursed to spend the rest of his days forsaken in his hometown, now a foreign land.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 19, 2026
Now that they’ve forsaken the last obstacle to selling out entirely, they will likely lose many more.
From Salon ● Jul. 11, 2025
He goes on to say they were "looking forward to a day scampering" and made the decision to leave their packs because they spent two days "lugging them up this God forsaken valley".
From BBC ● Jan. 8, 2025
Henley’s current lawyer, Dan Petrocelli, said in an emailed statement that the attorney-client privilege that had previously shielded some of the communications “is a foundational guardrail in our justice system” that should rarely be forsaken.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 6, 2024
At one o’clock Jan will come for half an hour to check on us poor forsaken souls, like a zookeeper.
From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
"I think Cam is a one-major guy if you go to LIV because you are forsaking your competitiveness for money," Clayton told me in 2023.
From BBC ● Dec. 2, 2025
Even more than an internal feeling, truly great art produces new conversations, and this one about how to create without forsaking yourself in the process is only just beginning.
From Salon ● Mar. 12, 2025
Now, 108 years later, the latest incarnation of that league – the PAC 12 – may be fading into sports history as Washington joins several other universities in forsaking the venerable West Coast athletic collective.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 8, 2023
Finally, she is forced to choose between forsaking her sense of safety and success and risking it all to embrace her truth.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2023
She turns to me, forsaking her view for a moment.
From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman
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.
