Adjective "abandoning" definition and examples




Definitions and examples


Cease to support or look after (someone); desert.
  1. 'Early in the novel, his mother, Rachel, abandons her husband and son, present thereafter only through a series of inscrutable postcards sent from the open road.'
  2. 'When my father abandoned us, my mother - a shy high school dropout who rarely drank - took a bartending course.'
  3. 'And, like her mother, she was abandoned by the man she loved.'
  4. 'His father abandoned him and his mother remarried.'
  5. 'His mother had abandoned her family when he was just seven years old.'
  6. 'But mothers who abandon their babies anonymously have no easy way to learn of the child's status or prove their maternity in time to appear and contest the adoption.'
  7. 'I want to ask him why he abandoned me and my mother and why he never showed his face to me.'
  8. 'Jones, it turns out, is Maggie's father, who abandoned her and her mother 30 years ago to run off with an Apache woman.'
  9. 'As planes full of holidaymakers thundered overhead, the whimpers of a three-month-old child abandoned by his mother and father went almost unnoticed.'
  10. 'His mother abandoned him and his father was a schizophrenic.'
  11. 'derelict houses were abandoned'
  12. 'After months of madness in the house, they decided to abandon the place and move back to Philadelphia.'
  13. 'Omata settlers abandoned their farms and rushed for the safety of New Plymouth or the Omata Stockade.'
  14. 'Local elites abandoned the countryside for towns and had little contact with the peasantry.'
  15. 'The sites are usually abandoned, leaving the land infertile and the water polluted.'
  16. 'The place was empty, the freshmen abandoned their rooms for the promise of ice cream.'
  17. 'I intend to abandon this city voluntarily after completing a certain experiment.'
  18. 'What I'm looking for is why this place was abandoned.'
  20. 'When they abandon their fields to seek new ones, they also abandon their village sites.'
  21. 'And surely, I should feel equally sorry for myself - and for all those others like me who have abandoned such places.'
  22. 'On 10 April, the tanks moved on and the museum was abandoned to its fate.'
  23. 'He has been installed as a glorified mayor of the capital while the rest of the country has been abandoned to poverty, neglect, and warlordism.'
  24. 'Simply to abandon it to its commercial fate would be to make the mistake that was made in the US.'
  25. 'After their 15 minutes of fame, freed political dissenters are abandoned to a life of obscurity and poverty.'
  26. 'At worst, his colleagues have abandoned him to his fate.'
  27. 'Areas of Bradford could be abandoned to floods as the cost of protection spirals, a conference was told yesterday.'
  28. 'Angry survivors told how the captain fled his ship by lifeboat and abandoned passengers to their fate.'
Give up completely (a practice or a course of action)
  1. 'negotiations were abandoned and fighting intensified'
  2. 'Consistency and cost issues were key in Whitworth College's decision to abandon outsourcing.'
  3. 'I was privileged to be secretary of the Navy when the decision was made to abandon the draft.'
  4. 'Rescuers abandoned attempts to find survivors after they found all 118 crew had died in the flooded vessel.'
  5. 'However, the company doesn't want to abandon the practice, and hopes new technology will improve the return on investment.'
  6. 'Although trained as a physician, Haeckel abandoned his practice in 1859 after reading Darwin's Origin of Species.'
  7. 'A spokeswoman for the clinic denied they had abandoned the therapy course on the grounds of advanced age.'
  8. 'Plans for a new city centre site were abandoned when the new plans were unveiled.'
  9. 'After he proposed numerous remodeling schemes, the clients opted to abandon the original plan in favor of an entirely new structure.'
  10. 'In addition, United's decision to abandon its workers' pension plan could reverberate throughout the industry.'
  11. 'Other countries have abandoned such practices.'
  12. 'The original match was abandoned after 30 minutes with Croydon leading 2-0.'
  13. 'However, as a result of strong winds and driving rain, the team eventually decided to abandon the session.'
  14. 'The recent heavy rain not only made the ground unsuitably soft for me so that my trainer Tim withdrew me from the race but the whole day's racing today at Thirsk was abandoned, with the course waterlogged.'
  15. 'Angry councillors abandoned a meeting in protest after it emerged the Mayor had snubbed them.'
  16. 'This afternoon's Uttoxeter card was abandoned because the course is waterlogged following heavy rain.'
  17. 'He added: ‘As far as I know nobody was injured at the incident, although the football match was abandoned.’'
  18. 'In such circumstances sailors who do not have to go to sea do not go to sea and at half past ten on Sunday morning the decision was taken to abandon racing.'
  19. 'The event was almost abandoned because of the lack of interest.'
  20. 'The Festival is finally abandoned after the confirmed outbreak just five miles away puts the track within an exclusion zone.'
  21. 'Oil on the track forced the cancellation of the fourth race and the rest of the meeting was abandoned.'
Allow oneself to indulge in (a desire or impulse)
  1. 'Manoeuvering viewers into abandoning themselves to a story, as long as it's done thoughtfully and with respect, is what movie directors should know how to do.'
  2. 'The common perception is that dancers abandon themselves to passion.'
  3. 'When you abandon yourself to pleasure and desire keep an eye on inner and outer balance, as you tend to overindulge.'
  4. 'Every year the city abandons itself to the heady allure of the world's largest arts festival.'
  5. 'If you abandon yourself to love, you will soon attain full growth.'
  6. 'She had abandoned herself to her longing for Carlos.'
  7. 'But abandoning myself to paradise didn't last long.'
  8. 'She abandoned herself to the role, identifying too strongly with the character and failing to put any insulating distance between herself and the part.'


Complete lack of inhibition or restraint.
  1. 'Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.'
  2. 'I could no longer walk the plank or shoot down enemy fighters with the same reckless abandon.'
  3. 'All this is described with a certain gay abandon and without any overtones of regret, yet Wright's behaviour rapidly became self-destructive.'
  4. 'I am saying that we need to proceed carefully, instead of moving forward with reckless abandon.'
  5. 'Normally a creature of habit, he has changed coaches and routine with reckless abandon in the past six months.'
  6. 'In the first 25 minutes, there was some exquisite rugby, where the balance between well-judged enterprise and reckless abandon was carefully maintained.'
  8. 'We can't go wild and start attacking with total abandon.'
  9. 'Her Juliet is delicate and gentle, her suicide a mix of restrained classicism and abandon.'
  10. 'This time around, reckless abandon has given way to cautious and deliberate strokes.'

More definitions





More examples(as adjective)

"soldiers can be abandoning."

"posts can be abandoning."

"lesbianses can be abandoning."

"centralisms can be abandoning."

"attitudes can be abandoning."

More examples++


(abandon)Late Middle English: from Old French abandoner, from a- (from Latin ad ‘to, at’) + bandon ‘control’ (related to ban). The original sense was ‘bring under control’, later ‘give in to the control of, surrender to’ ( abandon (sense 3 of the verb)).


abandon ship