# abandon

Pronunciation: say "uh-BAN-duhn" /əˈbæn.dən/

## Verb

1. To leave a ship, place, position, or person behind for good, often in the face of danger, sometimes in breach of a duty or responsibility.
   - Simple: To leave a person, place, or thing behind and not come back, especially in danger.
   - _The captain gave the order to abandon ship as the hull filled with water._
   - _They abandoned the stranded climbers despite promising to wait for them._
2. To stop doing, practicing, or supporting something, or to give up a belief, plan, right, title, or claim for good.
   - Simple: To stop doing or supporting something, or give up a belief, plan, or right.
   - _The committee voted to abandon the proposal after months of debate._
   - _Scientists abandoned the theory once new evidence emerged._
4. To give up or relinquish control; to surrender oneself or yield fully to one's emotions.
   - Simple: To give up control and let your feelings take over.
   - _She abandoned herself to grief when the news arrived._
   - _He would abandon all restraint whenever he heard that song._
5. To surrender an insured item to the insurer in order to claim a total loss on it.
   - Simple: To hand over damaged property to the insurer so you can claim it as a total loss.
   - _The shipowner elected to abandon the vessel to the underwriters after the collision._
   - _Once repairs exceeded the ship's value, the company abandoned it to the insurer._

## Noun

3. A yielding to natural impulses without restraint; freedom from self-control, often with little regard for the consequences.
   - Simple: A free, wild way of acting where you follow your feelings and forget the results.
   - _They threw themselves into the festival with complete abandon._
   - _Her abandon on the dance floor drew every eye in the room._

## Verb

6. To cast out, banish, or expel someone; to reject them entirely. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To send someone away for good and cast them out.
8. To subdue someone or something and take control of it. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To defeat someone or something and take full control of it.

## Noun

7. The act of giving up or relinquishing something completely. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: The act of giving something up completely.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–2, 4–6, 8** — Old French abandoner, made from a ("at, to") and bandon ("jurisdiction, control"), passed into Middle English as abandounen. Bandon derives from Late Latin bannum ("proclamation"), whose source was Frankish *ban. Behind that lies Proto-Germanic *bannaną ("to proclaim, command"), which also gave English ban and ultimately derives from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to speak."
**Meanings 3, 7** — Middle English borrowed abandoun from the Old French noun abandon, which is related to the Old French verb abondonner.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/abandon (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).